User:Robin
(would like) to do's
(would like) to do before end SI28
- reflect on Writing Machine Ensemble project + collecting documentation
- edit personal reader, add notes from notebook, relate to course material ( cognitive assemblage, media-specific analysis connected to grad work )
- reflect on new laptop set-up + connecting to Null's server ( learned about networking, internet protocols, etc. )
- reflect on open-source font library on Null's server ( learned about open licenses and practices )
- reflect on web-to-print techniques
- reflect on html / css course w/ class :)
- maybe list of tools / sources worth exploring..
wishes during holiday
- web-to-print set-up for freelance work
- learn python
- re-visit course material
- font encoding w/ fontforge (maybe for freelance assignment)
- lookup applictions for summer residencies
SI28
SIL Language Technologies, the organization behind the SIL Open Font License
[ -> documentation of my research so far ]
After setting-up my new laptop, I contacted my friend to connect to his self-hosted server, which I refer to as the Big Black Box. Then, got to re-downloading all the fonts I had lost. I wanted to make it into a little Open Font Library on the Big Black Box so everyone from their art collective with access to it could make use of it. Then, I wanted to include an overview .txt file for those less familiar with type-related stuff, which got me interested in adding a small guide to open licenses and practices (as I am learning about them myself).
While looking into different types of open licenses, I came across the Open Font License website. The SIL Open Font License, developed by SIL Language Technologies, turns out to be a license, dedicated to the 'open development of the languages of the world', and is an American Evangelical Christian Missionary non-profit organization. That info had an uncomfortable flavor to it... Why is open language development promoted by an organization that in their mission statement describes their objective is to "Bring the word of God to all the languages in the world?" And not even as a side-note, but as the central aim to their efforts!
From there, I digressed from the Open Font Library description and started diving deeper into the politics of language technologies. My discomfort lies in the huge contrast between the ideals of Open Source Communities that I started learning about and the messaging of this organization, especially how that would influence technological development and inform visibility of language diversity. Writing for the Open Font Library, I highlighted the work of Bye Bye Binary in queer language encoding. Reading about this, I felt like a huge step was being made in the visibility of post-binary language, because they made it possible to use Open Type features to write gender-inclusive language with fonts that support it! Made possible by their Queer Unicode Initiative. Queer language encoding means that gender-inclusive ways of writing are now included in the systems of Standards that make it possible to write digitally in the first place!
I was not at all unaware of the colonial/racial charges within the technical development of language. Still, instinctively, this felt like a huge win for language inclusivity. Or at least for a partial recognition for ways of expression through language that fall outside established use. That, combined with Bye Bye Binaries dedication to open-source practices, that prioritize collective ownership and creation over claiming 'intellectual property' over their typefaces, make their efforts a strong anti-colonial / queer-feminist practice. And they are not foreign to a critique of colonial implications in the technologies, licenses and practices that type development depend on. There is no such thing as operating completely independently of these forces. Still, given how heavily open-source typefaces depend on the SIL Open Font License, made want to know more to what extend they still shape language technology development today. So I did some digging into the organization behind the SIL Language Technology.