Title: Libre Fonts Date: 2009-06-07 10:40 Author: Femke Category: Fonts Tags: Libre Fonts, Terminology, Watch this thread Slug: libre-fonts Status: published The [Open Font Library](http://openfontlibrary.org/) is preparing a brand new site (an idea of what's in store: [http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki](http://openfontlibrary.org/wiki/Main_Page)) and this sparked off an interesting discussion about terminology. How to name fonts that are made available on the OFL site? ***Free Fonts*** sounds nice, but risks to blur with gratis (and non-free) fonts promoted under the same term. Others are all for using it because even if confusing, *Freedom* is important. There are many arguments against the use of the word ***FLOSS Fonts***: it is an acronym, a software term (there is no consensus about whether fonts are software), and it sounds ugly. The software-argument works against ***Free Software Fonts*** too, of course. ***Open Fonts*** mixes with *Open Type* (which again has nothing to do with their license) and is felt to be ambiguous and evasive. But for the same reason, others are in favour of the term because *Open* is more inclusive and alludes to the 'open endedness' of a font or process. The current proposal is to use ***Libre Fonts***, even when it introduces an unfamiliar term to English speakers and would need some explanation. OSP likes this nicely awkward cross-language invention so we have adopted the term ***Libre Fonts*** and renamed our tags. We hope it sticks around. Thread on the openfontlibrary list: