Linux Libertine

From HandWiki
Short description: Free typeface
Linux Libertine
Linux Libertine.svg
CategorySerif
ClassificationTransitional
Designer(s)Philipp H. Poll
FoundryLibertine Open Fonts Project
Date releasedSeptember 23, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-09-23)
Characters2,673
Glyphs2,676
LicenseGPL / OFL
Shown hereVersion 5.3.0
Websitesourceforge.net/projects/linuxlibertine/
Latest release version5.3.0
Latest release dateJuly 6, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-07-06)
Linux Biolinum
Linux Biolinum sample.png
CategorySans-serif
ClassificationHumanist
Designer(s)Philipp H. Poll
FoundryLibertine Open Fonts Project
Date releasedSeptember 23, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-09-23)
Characters2,400
Glyphs2,403
LicenseGPL / OFL
Linux Biolinum.svg
Sample
Shown hereVersion 5.3.0
Latest release version5.3.0
Latest release dateFebruary 2, 2016; 8 years ago (2016-02-02)

Linux Libertine is a digital typeface created by the Libertine Open Fonts Project, which aims to create free and open alternatives to proprietary typefaces such as Times New Roman. It is developed with the free font editor FontForge and is licensed under the GNU General Public License and the SIL Open Font License.[1]

A side project of Linux Libertine is Linux Biolinum: it is a sans serif font based on Optima.

Derivative works are the following.

  • The Libertinus font family, including:
    • Libertinus Serif, a serif font based on Linux Libertine.
    • Libertinus Sans, a sans serif font based on Linux Biolinum and Optima.
  • Common Serif, another serif font based on Linux Libertine.

Characteristics

Linux Libertine is a proportional serif typeface inspired by 19th century book type and is intended as a replacement for the Times font family.[1]

The typeface has five styles: regular, bold, italic, bold italic, and small capitals, all of which are available in TrueType and OpenType format, as well as in source code. The OpenType version allows automatic positioning and substitution, including true fractions, ligatures and kerning. A display type variant, while similar in letter form, is lighter in weight and bears a closer resemblance to old-style types such as Palatino.

There is also a complementary humanist sans-serif face, Linux Biolinum, similar to Optima or Candara. It is available in bold and italic styles.

Unicode coverage

Linux Libertine contains more than 2,000 glyphs and encompasses character sets such as the Greek Alphabet, Cyrillic script, and Hebrew alphabet. Additionally, it offers several ligatures (such as f‌f, f‌i, and c‌t, and the capital ß). It also includes special characters such as International Phonetic Alphabet, arrows, floral symbols, Roman numbers, text figures, and small caps. The Tux mascot is included at the Unicode code point U+E000.

Usage

The Wikipedia wordmark in small caps

In 2010, Linux Libertine was adopted as an open-source substitute for the Hoefler Text typeface in the redesign of the Wikipedia logo, making it possible to localize the Wikipedia identity into more than 250 languages and character sets.[2] The "W" character, which had previously been used in various other places in Wikipedia (such as the favicon) and was a "distinctive part of the Wikipedia brand", had "crossed" V glyphs in the original logo, while Linux Libertine has a joined W letter shape. As a solution, the "crossed" W was added to Linux Libertine as an OpenType variant.[3][4]

Both the Linux Libertine and Linux Biolinum typefaces are used by the open-source design publication Libre Graphics Magazine and the Association for Computing Machinery journals and conference proceedings.[5][6]

Derivative works

László Németh created a variant of fonts with additional Graphite font tables: Linux Libertine G and Linux Biolinum G.[7] Both these fonts are bundled with LibreOffice as of the suite's 3.3 release,[8] with some features added in the 3.5 release.[9]

Khaled Hosny forked the Linux Libertine font family in 2012[10] that stemmed from a lack of a matching mathematical companion font for Linux Libertine. He officially released the initial version of his fork in 2016.[11] Due to licensing restrictions of Linux Libertine regarding the need to change the name of derivative works, he renamed his version to Libertinus fonts (including Libertinus Serif and Libertinus Sans).[12] Hosny also used this opportunity to unify the various font names. Thus, Linux Libertine became Libertinus Serif, Linux Biolinum became Libertinus Sans, and Linux Libertine Mono became Libertinus Mono. His new mathematical font is called Libertinus Math. While working on the mathematical companion, Hosny fixed many technical issues of the already existing fonts. This led him to a complete fork of Linux Libertine, not just adding a complementing typeface to it.[13] Since Linux Libertine's releases came to a halt in 2012,[14] the actively developed Libertinus fonts are de facto a continuation of the now stalled Linux Libertine project. Khaled passed the role of maintainer on to Caleb Maclennan in 2020.[15]

Stefan Peev forked the Libertinus Serif font to create the Common Serif font in 2022.[16]

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Byfield, Bruce (August 28, 2006). "Linux Libertine Open Fonts offers free Times Roman alternative". Linux.com. http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/56565. 
  2. Walsh, Jay (May 13, 2010). "Wikipedia in 3D". Wikimedia Blog. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/05/13/wikipedia-in-3d/. 
  3. Poll, Philipp H.. "New Wikipedia-Logo using LinuxLibertine". Libertine Open Fonts Project. http://www.linuxlibertine.org/index.php?id=2&L=1. 
  4. Walsh, Jay (May 13, 2010). "Wikimedia official marks/About the official Marks". Wikimedia Foundation. https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_official_marks/About_the_official_Marks&oldid=46774. 
  5. Carvalho, Ana Isabel; coons, ginger; Lafuente, Ricardo (2010). "Production Colophon". Libre Graphics Magazine 1 (1): 7. ISSN 1925-1416. http://libregraphicsmag.com/files/libregraphicsmag_1.1_lowquality.pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-18. 
  6. Veytsman, Boris (November 5, 2023). LaTeX Class for the Association for Computing Machinery. Association for Computing Machinery. https://portalparts.acm.org/hippo/latex_templates/acmart.pdf. 
  7. "Linux Libertine G and Linux Biolinum G for LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org desktop publishing, OpenType to Graphite conversion". Numbertext.org. https://numbertext.org/linux/. 
  8. "Bundled Linux "Libertine G" and Linux "Biolinum G" fonts". Libreoffice.org. http://www.libreoffice.org/download/3-3-new-features-and-fixes/. 
  9. "Release Notes 3.5". The Document Foundation wiki. February 21, 2012. http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.5#Writer. 
  10. "First commit of the Linux Libertine software repository". https://github.com/alif-type/libertinus/commit/35a578bc768b2a0fa286a1bc87c24db8e337cfb1. 
  11. Hosny, Khaled. The libertine gets mathematical. TUGboat, vol. 37 (2016), No. 1., https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb37-1/tb115hosny.pdf, retrieved 2017-12-17 
  12. "alif-type/libertinus: Libertinus Font Family". https://github.com/alif-type/libertinus. 
  13. Hosny, Khaled. The libertine gets mathematical. TUGboat, vol. 37 (2016), No. 1., https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb37-1/tb115hosny.pdf, retrieved 2017-12-17 
  14. Sourceforge – list of releases of the Linux Libertine font, https://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxlibertine/files/linuxlibertine/, retrieved 2017-12-08 
  15. "GitHub – alerque/Libertinus: The Libertinus font family". June 16, 2022. https://github.com/alerque/libertinus#history. 
  16. "GitHub – StefanPeev/Common-Serif: The Common Serif project is based on Libertinus Serif.". https://github.com/StefanPeev/Common-Serif#history. Retrieved May 2, 2023. 

External links