FONTLOG
Gentium font family
========================


This file provides detailed information on the Gentium family of fonts. This
information should be distributed along with the Gentium fonts and any
derivative works.


Basic Font Information
----------------------

Gentium ("belonging to the nations" in Latin) is a Unicode typeface family
designed to enable the many diverse ethnic groups around the world who use
the Latin script to produce readable, high-quality publications. The design
is intended to be highly readable, reasonably compact, and visually
attractive. Gentium has won a "Certificate of Excellence in Typeface Design"
in two major international typeface design competitions: bukva:raz! (2001),
TDC2003 (2003).

Gentium provides glyphs for a wide range of Latin and Greek characters. The
additional 'extended' Latin letters are designed to naturally harmonize with
the traditional 26 ones. Diacritics are treated with careful thought and
attention to their use. Gentium also supports both ancient and modern Greek,
including a number of alternate forms. It currently supports the following
ranges of Unicode 3.0 (completely unless noted):

Range           Description
U+0020-U+007F   Basic Latin
U+00A0-U+00FF   Latin-1 Supplement
U+0100-U+017F   Latin Extended-A
U+0180-U+021F   Latin Extended-B
U+0222-U+0233   Latin Extended-B (continued)
U+0250-U+02AD   IPA Extensions
U+02B0-U+02FF   Spacing Modifier Letters
U+0300-U+036F   Combining Diacritical Marks
U+0370-U+03D5   Greek (not including archaic or Coptic)
U+1E00-U+1EFF   Latin Extended Additional
U+1F00-U+1FFF   Greek Extended
U+2000-U+203A   General Punctuation (partial)
U+2070-U+209F   Superscripts and Subscripts
U+20A0-U+20CF   Currency Symbols (partial)
U+2100-U+214F   Letterlike Symbols (only a couple)

Gentium Regular also includes some Cyrillic glyphs, but they are only early
drafts. A future version will include a completely revised set, including
italic, and will expand the support for Latin, Greek and Cyrillic to Unicode
4.1.


ChangeLog
---------
(This should list both major and minor changes, most recent first.)

28 Nov 2005 (Victor Gaultney)  Gentium version 1.02
- Changed licensing to the SIL Open Font License
- Included FontLab source files
- Fixed some duplicate PostScript glyphs names
- Fixed italic angle

19 Sep 2003 (Victor Gaultney)  Gentium version 1.01 
- Maintenance release focused on changing internal font
- Information to reflect the changeover to an SIL project
- There is only one bug fix - the Greek mu PS name was changed to try and fix
a display/printing problem. There is still no manual hinting

16 Sep 2002 (Victor Gaultney)  Gentium version 1.00
- First public release
- No manual hinting is included in this version. Some has been done - with
good results - but is not yet complete enough.


Information for Contributors
----------------------------

The main point of version 1.02 is to enable modification via the OFL and to
establish a means for people to contribute to the project. For information
on what you're allowed to change or modify, consult the OFL and OFL-FAQ. The
OFL-FAQ also gives a very general rationale regarding why you would want to
contribute to the project.

Anyone can make their own modified version of Gentium (using a different
name), but SIL International will continue to maintain and develop the
canonical version of the Gentium fonts. As the package maintainer, we warmly
welcome contributions. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Format: We are open to contributions in various formats, but if you want to
maximise the chances of us including your work, please make it available to
us (via email or a URL) as either a FontLab database (preferred) or a
PostScript Type 1 (or OT-CFF) font.

Source files: For the first time, we're including FontLab databases used in
developing the fonts. The current fonts, however, were not solely built from
this FontLab database, so a simple "Generate Font" will not give you an
identical result. These databases are provided not as canonical source but
as an aid to anyone who might find it useful to have access to the
PostScript-style curves before they were turned into TrueType ones. BTW -
although only two databases are provided, they contain all the Alt glyphs.
In the future we may be making our 'source' available in three formats:
OpenType (TrueType), OT-CFF, and FontLab.

Copyright attribution: If you submit something for inclusion in the main
Gentium fonts, we will ask you to affirm that it is your original work, and
ask you to assign the copyright of your work to SIL International. This is
to ensure that future releases can be made under improved versions of the
OFL without needing to track you down for further permission. This follows
the same principle used by the FSF. Keep in mind that we are a
not-for-profit organization committed to free/libre and open source
software, and that any contributions incorporated in the fonts will always
be available under the OFL or a similar license.

Quality: Because we want to be able to guarantee a high level of quality for
the primary Gentium fonts, we will review submissions carefully. Please
don't be discouraged if we do not include a submission for this reason, or
ask you to make specific revisions.

What types of contributions are welcomed now (some more than others):
- Old style figures
- Small caps (although we would want such done for *all* caps, not just A-Z)
- Specifications for smart Greek code (write us about this)
- Coptic
- Historic/Archaic Cyrillic
- Glyphs used for ancient Greek text study (but not alphabetic ones, like
the digamma)
- Mathematical glyphs
- OpenType code and glyphs for on-the-fly fraction creation
- Additional scripts (Armenian, etc.?), and any needed OT/Graphite/AAT code
- Other things that we may have once told you we didn't have time to do :-)

What is not needed at this point:
- Revisions to the basic letters or their spacing
- Cyrillic revisions or additions. These are already in process
- Other weights (Bold, Bold italic). We already have some work done on this
- Alphabetic Ancient Greek glyphs (digamma, etc.). These are done and are
waiting for the next release
- Unicode 4.1 additions for Latin. We have these already in the pipeline
- General Latin/Cyrillic OpenType/Graphite/AAT code - we already have this
(see our Doulos SIL project)
- Kerning - there is some in place
- Hinting - although if you could offer to do some hinting, let us know :-)

So why didn't we include some of this in this release? The only change for
1.02 is the new licensing model. We thought that it was important to get a
revised font out before we had completed the next big revision. We also
didn't want to hold up release until we had everything neat and tidy :-)

When submissions will be included: We hope to have a revised version of the
Regular and Italic fonts (including full Cyrillic) completed by mid-2006. To
do this we will need submissions early in the year. Other weights will
follow after that.

WARNINGS: The details of the source files and build procedures will be
changing radically before the next release, so do not spend too much time
working on systems that depend on the current FontLab database information.
Also - the Cyrillic glyphs in the regular font are very early prototypes and
will be changing completely. So don't bother to modify them!


Acknowledgements
----------------
(Here is where contributors can be acknowledged. If you make modifications
be sure to add your name (N), email (E), web-address (W) and description
(D). This list is sorted by last name in alphabetical order.)

N: Victor Gaultney
E: victor_gaultney@sil.org
W: http://www.sil.org/~gaultney/
D: Original Designer of Latin, Greek and Cyrillic glyphs

The Gentium project is maintained by SIL International.

For more information please visit the Gentium page on SIL International's
Computers and Writing systems website:
http://scripts.sil.org/gentium

Or send an email to <gentium AT sil DOT org>
