github/mona-sans

License does not allow subsetting

justinpenner opened this issue · 0 comments

This font is quite large at 134KB compressed (WOFF2), and the size will grow significantly as more language support is added. Web developers may want to subset the character set to reduce the size.

But, since this font is licensed under OFL with a Reserved Font Name, subsetting is not allowed unless the name is also changed in the name table entries. The name tables in a font are complicated for even experienced font developers to edit, so I think it would be a significant technical hurdle for most web developers to learn how to edit name table entries properly.

Would it be possible to remove the RFN from the license? Keeping the RFN may hinder this font from being widely used.

The Google Fonts onboarding docs have more info about this. If the RFN isn't removed, the alternative is signing an agreement with Google Fonts, and the same agreement would have to be made between Github and each user of Mona Sans, if they want to do their own subsetting without changing the internal font name.