It is fairly hard to comprehend what the approval process and actual timeline for including new fonts in the Google Font library is. When looking at the issues there seem to be cases in which fonts have been pending addition and review for months without obvious reason or communication of schedules for inclusion.

While the diligence to make new additions adhere to quality standards is commendable I am wondering if Google could be more transparent on what are the issues behind the scenes that are stopping new additions. I am specifically talking about cases where the open issue does not give indication that something is still amiss with the sources, but that appear fixed and ready for shipping but simply hang in the queue. Sorting the issues by oldest or most commented there appear to be pages full of new addition requests which are not blocked but not added either, some open for years?

For a more concrete example: A design agency has a client that might be interested in financing the creation of a Open Source font for their own branding use with the prerequisite that it will be available via GF. As a type designer subcontracting for the design agency I can estimate my ability to adhere to various GF quality guidelines and procedures, yet I still can not give the client or design agency any confirmation that a font will find inclusion in the GF library and at what time frame. Obviously, that makes such a project impossible and a potential new font for eventual wider circulation will not get commissioned.

I understand that I am presuming technical fitness and adherence to GF standards, which often seem to set font projects back in the queue. Yet there are issues where seemingly the process is just on hold from the side of GF. Can you elaborate on this and how GF can be more transparent in this?

Or more concretely: If I have a font that qualifies under all the contributing guidelines what is GF’s promise response time window for inclusion in the catalog?