[smc-discuss] Why Has Rachana Font Been Forked?

[Akshay S Dinesh]

Dear smc-discuss, KH Hussain, and CVR,

I came across this page: http://rachana.org.in/genesis.html on Rachana
Institute of Typography website. In my reading what I understand is that
RIT is forking and maintaining a different version of Rachana. Free
fonts can be forked by anyone and maintained by anyone. That's what
"swathanthra" in SMC refers to.

But there are also a set of reasons given which seems to suggest that
there were/are errors in the font which were not getting rectified.

I do not understand this. As far as I've seen SMC has an open
development model for fonts including this public mailing list where
anyone can suggest modifications and also send patches. At least that's
what I understand from the words "Swathanthra Malayalam Computing".

Is RIT-Rachana a fork with different design choices? If that's the case
why does the blog post say that Rachana has "errors" in it? Design
choices cannot be "errors".

I remember https://blog.smc.org.in/font-licensing-response-to-rit/ which
was a report created by a few people including me about an older
statement by RIT. I don't think there has been any response from RIT
regarding the same.

Does RIT hold some ill will towards SMC as an organization? If that's
the case, I suggest that there be discussions regarding the reasons why
that is so.

Can anyone give me details about the "reasons" why Rachana has been forked?

Akshay

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Akshay S Dinesh
https://asd.learnlearn.in