Loading font from external website

[Arty]

As you can see on this forum, phpBB 3.1 replaces image buttons like "Post Reply" with CSS buttons. Problem is, font doesn't look good.

There was a long debate on how to fix issue, best solution so far is to use Open Sans web font. You can see it here: http://tracker.phpbb.com/browse/PHPBB3- ... ment-39384 (scroll down to screenshots of Open Sans)

Pull request is here: https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb3/pull/1402 so you can test it yourself.

There is a problem with that solution: Open Sans font is released under Apache 2.0 license that is not compatible with GPL, so it cannot be included in phpBB. Selecting other font won't help because almost all web fonts are released under Apache 2.0 or SIL license, both licenses are not compatible with GPL.

One possible solution is to include font via external link to fonts.googleapis.com.

Upside is Google is serving slightly different code for different browsers, making sure font always works. Another upside is linking to external website might help load page faster because loading that font isn't affected by connections limit.

Downside is intranet forums without internet connection won't be able to use Open Sans. For them browsers will default to Verdana font instead, unless Open Sans is installed on computer.

What do you think? Is linking to third party website an acceptable solution or is there a better solution?

[DarkBeing]

Just throwing in some thoughts.

I think we had once a discussion about a similar idea about including jQuery from an external source. People seemed partly not so happy with that. I think the problem is, users might not like the idea to have to rely on an external service which they have no control over to have the forum work/look like they want it to. There could be a chance that suddenly that look is changed because the external service goes down or is being blocked (Google & China comes to mind).

In general, I think I could live with this, as it seems only to be a "minor" thing; plus it has a fallback option in case Google goes down or can not be accessed (Intranet).

[hanakin]

+1
however I would argue that if they are using it as an intranet option that they could go ahead and download and serve that font on their own as there would be no legality issues on an internal system as long as its an open source font.

The real concern would be those individuals that can not access google cdn as pointed out by DarkBeing

on the plus side this does open us up to server different fonts to the users of our forums if we wish from the google repository for our themes built into core.

[nickvergessen]

I don't really like including an external font, but I guess there are not very many fonts available under gpl?

[Arty]

I guess there are not very many fonts available under gpl?

Unfortunately no. Fonts are ether available under Apache 2.0 or SIL, both are not compatible with GPL.

[Un1matr1x]

There are GPL-Fonts, f.e. http://www.fonts2u.com/category.html?pg ... w=&wd=&fc=

an just the "first" Free Sans - http://www.fonts2u.com/free-sans-bold.schriftart

[Arty]

Problem with those fonts is we don't know how reliable those fonts are. Fonts available on google web fonts page are the only ones that are properly tested. Fonts available on download websites are usually incomplete or low quality.

I wouldn't use any font that isn't available on google web fonts.

[Frug]

I don't think this looks bad, and I believe a theme that ships with the product should value the simplest solution (using veranda in this case).

[Senky]

I think it is ok to link to external file. If file cannot be loaded (what in fact is almost impossible when it is hosted on google servers), it will be replaced by Verdana - font used for now. So no problem.

[Vinny]

+1