Selling opentype features as separate fonts

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Comments

  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    David: by the late 90s, GX was no threat at all. Not even a little. It had failed. Completely unlike the web it was owned by one company who was not about to license the proprietary aspects to other OS vendors.

    I just remembered another reason that GX failed. It required that anyone using it convert ALL their fonts to a special "GX-ified" format that was incompatible with people not using GX. Now, it was easily done. But you couldn't move fonts back and forth. You were either a GX user or not. Significant PITA. This was something Apple got away from with GX-rebranded-as-AAT, which was very smart. But too late.

    (Note, by “failed” I mean that it was not being adopted by app vendors to speak of, and especially not by font vendors other than Apple. I am told Apple does not think of GX/AAT as a failure, as after all it is still the basis of their OS-level support and fonts for all sorts of language support. Even if they are supporting OpenType as well.)

    This dispute aside, as a member of the Academy, I will definitely be voting for David for a Nodie. :)
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    David, we tolerate you, we really tolerate you.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    edited May 2014
    Thomas, wrote,

    "Apple does not think of GX/AAT as a failure, as after all it is still the basis of their OS-level support and fonts for all sorts of language support."

    They never licensed or developed anything else, and their stock seems okay. So, if it's there all along... Maybe it worked...huh. Thanks for pointing that out, though it undermines the first part of your post. What failed was adoption of platform wide standards, which as I said, is something all the users here would love to see from Adobe 20 years later. Now that's success.

    But this is a really amazing, "now I remember" moment:
    "It required that anyone using it convert ALL their fonts to a special "GX-ified" format that was incompatible with people not using GX. Now, it was easily done. But you couldn't move fonts back and forth. You were either a GX user or not."

    And paisley unicorns nibbled your toes. Who is "anyone" in your acid-drenched Adobe memories. There were tables in the sfnt, that were either nored or ignored. Apps decided, beyond the required tables, what to support. Just exactly like today, and yesterday, when type1, TT, and OT diverged and apps sucked. Then whoever was the "who" that couldn't move fonts between what and what, I never heard of.

    None of that was an issue. The issue as I said, was entrenchment. And that's lasted till the web, and beyond. Jasper has partly to ask this question because MS didn't implement OT right off in the OS, Adobe didn't have an OS, and has not to this day implemented OT consistently across its apps like it was using an OS level service.

    GX line layout, meanwhile was renamed and absorbs OT like it doesn't matter, and no one seems to worry about "losing control" of line layout in the modern era. When the web catches up, so will safari. GX variations had a baby, who is quite well and we all hope Victoria gets around to getting into a similar state somewhere along the line.



  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    > Then whoever was the "who" that couldn't move fonts between what and what, I never heard of.

    Then my also-fading memory must be just slightly better than yours. A little research shows that this was an issue specific to Mac Type 1 fonts and not Mac TrueType, which I didn't remember until I read up again.

    But most graphics- and typography-oriented users of the era had mostly Type 1 fonts. Basically, GX required that Type 1 fonts be repackaged in a new format where all the Type 1 data was in the sfnt resource, inside the suitcase. Yes, not unlike OpenType CFF. But without any support for using these fonts on a “regular” Mac again afterwards.

    Let's say it is 1995 and I have two Macs. I install/activate GX on one, and did not on the other.

    All the installed Type 1 fonts on the GX Mac get "GX-ified" when I turn GX on. Any new Type 1 fonts I install are also GX-ified. I can't copy or share GX-ified Type 1 fonts with my other Mac, because it does not recognize them as Type 1 fonts any more. (Maybe it still sees the bitmap fonts? I dunno. But the outlines are dead and inaccessible to that machine and its apps.)

    This was a major compatibility issue during what could have been the transition period for GX. Yet another reason not to go there for users and developers. I certainly remember many users citing it as why they couldn’t or wouldn’t experiment with GX.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    Thomas: "A little research shows that this was an issue specific to Mac Type 1 fonts and not Mac TrueType,"

    Yes. Type1 one fonts were immobile. One could not move them to or from Mac to PC, to Linux, or to NeXT without shenanigans, because of a number of things related to the shennaniginians who implemented PS hither and yon, and licensing issues.

    "Yes, not unlike OpenType CFF. But without any support for using these fonts on a “regular” Mac again afterwards."

    There is no afterwards. What are you saying?

    "Let's say it is 1995 and I have two Macs. "

    I have two macs and 2 PC's, a NeXT in S.F. , and Taligent.

    "I install/activate GX on one, and did not on the other. All the installed Type 1 fonts on the GX Mac get "GX-ified" when I turn GX on."

    Absolutely. We are no longer looking in a huge pile of afms, bitmaps, and lrfn files, but sfntification is in its early stages.

    "Any new Type 1 fonts I install are also GX-ified. I can't copy or share GX-ified Type 1 fonts with my other Mac, because it does not recognize them as Type 1 fonts any more. "

    No kidding? Was that your last copy? Were you licensed to do that? ;)

    I don't see the problem. When a platform wants to rewrap fonts to move into the future, should those fonts need to work in legacy environments, then the future would be bleak.

    "I certainly remember many users citing it as why they couldn’t or wouldn’t experiment with GX"

    Hilarious. Did you check their pulse? You have a user with their fonts installed on system 7. And they want to try system 8. They move, along with some system 8 compatible apps, their fonts over and these reinstall as sfnts. Their system 7 machine is sitting there with all the same fonts. No fonts have been lost anywhere. All the menus on both machines show all the fonts.
    Then, for some head splitting and unfathomably munchkinesque reason the user puts their system 8 gxified font library on a disk, takes it to the innocent system 7 machine, and says what? "This works so well over there (on 8), maybe I should erase all my type1 fonts and install these here GX fonts!?"

    What you remember makes no sense, except maybe for scary Adobe marketing taking points to clients c. 1989-1999, sorry.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,896
    edited May 2014
    This wasn't marketing and users hated it. Remember, this had all gone down before OpenType even existed—no marketing involved. It was the reality for people using these machines. Not even with different OS versions, either. Using a single OpenType .otf font did not require that you run all your Type 1 fonts through a converter to turn them into .OTFs, which is essentially .what GX did. You had a "GX machine" or a "regular Mac" and they were entirely different things. Big difference.

    This may all seem easy and reasonable to you. But users hated it, and it was a significant factor in why GX crashed and burned in the marketplace.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    The typeface I’m developing now will be published as both a fully-featured OpenType font, AND with the Stylistic Sets broken out as separate fonts, which will be included in a package when the OT font is bought, but also available singly.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    Nick, you should get some interesting data from how the sales break down. I have also thought of doing this but decided it was more work than worth the effort. Hopefully, you will prove me wrong?
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    edited May 2014
    Thomas: "This wasn't marketing and users hated it."

    Hmmm, more anecdotalization. This is not an anecdotal argument on my side; GX crashed cross-platformatically but then burned itself into the Mac OS, and into advanced type tools.

    "Remember, this had all gone down before OpenType even existed—no marketing involved."

    Yes, Opentype didn't exist. Adobe did not need OpenType to hate GX. As I said, that which encroached on and threatened Adobe's technical investments, Adobe marketed against, to users, OEMs, and eventually to standards groups and the w3c. What the lads here have to make now, are the fonts Adobe was marketing then, "expert" fonts. And the problems with "expert" fonts are the reason for OpenType and GX Layout in the first place.

    So this argument; " "GX machine" or a "regular Mac" and they were entirely different things." really goes like this:

    On one computer you have a pair of sfnts defining a whole font family including all mastering for all sizes and resolutions, all the glyphs of a style are together, and accessible via a standard menu of typography, with the whole caboodle going on at the system level such that all your applications, (except Adobe's) have all kinds-o-combinatorial explosiveness in typographic functionality. (Yesterday, this was a "GX Machine", today, its our web font file server.)

    On the other machine you have piles of all kinds of files for kerning, for laser printer fonts, BITMAPs for screen fonts, a stand alone app to render them, for each OS, all repeated in more files for each OS. But in the end there is rarely ever kerning. Glyphs in an expert font, who knows?? And according to Thomas it only needs each of Adobe's many "product managers" to get aboard. And then Ditto that at MS. (Yesterday, this was a "regular Mac", today, it's gotten old, and perhaps it is not crashing and burning fast enough?)

    The web hates the second machine, and loves the first, trust me. Users hate the second machine, and desperately want the first. trust me. :)





  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    Sure, there were problems with Expert fonts. But on the other hand, although goodies like SC&OSF are appropriate to include in OT fonts, it’s a little too easy to put umpteen options into Stylistic Sets. That’s a different issue. It‘s like those bonus tracks that are packaged with an album re-release—well yeah, they weren’t good enough then and still aren’t.

    In deciding to break out Stylistic Sets in my present effort, it’s focused my design to make these alternates as meaningful as possible, to stand on their own feet as distinctive fonts. Hopefully users (both web designers and web readers) will love that.




  • Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh
    Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh Posts: 539
    I believe photoshop still doesn't support stylistic sets. Fwiw.
  • Chris Lozos
    Chris Lozos Posts: 1,458
    Photoshop does not even support a glyph palette!
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,216
    edited May 2014
    But photoshop has transcended mere typography and is now the generic term for collage and retouching: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/disgraceful-korean-war-memorial-is-a-historical-photosh-1583055137
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,739
    Illustrator doesn't support stylistic sets yet, either.
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    Stylistic sets doesn't support stylistic sets yet, either.

    If you go here:
    http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/opentype/index_tag3.html

    ...and click on any of the stylistic sets, like for a definition, you seem to get palt's definition. ;)
  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 647
    David, that's just the beginning of the p-t section. Scroll down for the salt definition.

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