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Urdu: add Hussaini Nastaleeq font in Nastaʿlīq/Nastalique/Nastaleeq/Nastaliq style
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Description

Urdu is apparently traditionally written in the Nastaliq style, and not in a Naskh style.

I have found an MIT licensed font that is using this style and that might be good enough:
http://openfontlibrary.org/en/font/hussaini-nastaleeq

A user has given positive feedback on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Common.css&oldid=prev&diff=581321602

I'm not sure about the license question, but if it's possible I think it is a good idea to add this font to the urdu language set, so we can do further testing and possibly at some point promote it as the default if the Urdu community would desire so.


Version: master
Severity: enhancement
URL: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Thread:Talk:Universal_Language_Selector/Nastaliq_font_for_Urdu
See Also:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46693

Details

Reference
bz56939

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to High.Nov 22 2014, 2:31 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz56939.
  • Bug 60685 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

See bug 46693, Nastaliq Navees is deprecated. We currently know two options:

  • AlQalam Taj Nastaleeq with their currently incompatible "Open Font License Agreement v0.9" http://alqlm.org/fonts/alqalam-fonts-license/ : needs license status improvements, see bug 60685 (nothing devs can do).
  • Hussaini Nastaleeq, suggested above: needs users to confirm here it's good enough for them.

It CANNOT be implemented until the license is compatible.
It's a legal requirement that needs to be sorted out first.

  • Bug 60685 comment 13 clarified that Taj Nastaleeq is out of question, the author wants it to be non-commercial.
  • Hussaini Nastaleeq already has 14 supporting users so it seems appreciated. MIT license is ok. It would be even better if the author (or CRULP directly) confirmed there are no issues with this being "inspired" to Nafees by the same author.

I am asking a member of my team to look at this, but it might take a bit.

ameen.akbar wrote:

Taj Nastaleeq is free for non commercial use.

syed.wamiq wrote:

Hussaini Nastaleeq permits commercial as well as derivative use.

Hussaini Nastaleeq should probably be using the same license as Nafees Nastaleeq, rather than MIT. But either license is compatible with our policies, so there is no known legal concern with using Hussaini Nastaleeq.

(The Nafees Nastaleeq license is essentially the Bitstream Vera License, which is not a great license but is widely considered free, including being shipped with Debian.)

Great! We're ready to go. :)
Kartik, should this be still/again assigned to you?

ameen.akbar wrote:

We are working with license according to wikipedia's requirement of Taj Nastaleeq. Creator of Font Mr. Shahkir already comment on bug 56939 post.

syed.wamiq wrote:

(In reply to comment #14)

sorry, discussion is here in his link.'
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60685#c10

But Taj's licence is incompatible with Wikipedia.

syed.wamiq wrote:

(In reply to comment #14)

sorry, discussion is here in his link.'
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60685#c10

Moreover Taj Nastaleeq is a ligature-based font of several MBs, whereas Hussaini Nastaleeq is not ligature-based and has a size of a few hundred KBs. So Hussaini Nastaleeq is better for implementation anyway.

urdu.text wrote:

In addition to the huge size of nastaliq fonts, they generally do not work on all platforms (OS and browsers). Many of these nastaliqs have borrowed from the commercial nuri font without attribution or permission. It is best to stick with a simple Naskh font like "Nafees Web Naskh"

  • which is already operational
  • has been tested on most platforms and
  • is work of a reputable publicly funded research organization.

(In reply to syed.wamiq from comment #16)

(In reply to comment #14)

sorry, discussion is here in his link.'
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60685#c10

Moreover Taj Nastaleeq is a ligature-based font of several MBs, whereas
Hussaini Nastaleeq is not ligature-based and has a size of a few hundred
KBs. So Hussaini Nastaleeq is better for implementation anyway.

[Any statements would profit a lot from providing links to reliable references, to make clear that they are not personal opinions only.]

ameen.akbar wrote:

Any statement express by one user is his personal statement. The authorities of Bugzilla require a local consensus. Local consensus link is ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%88%DB%8C%DA%A9%DB%8C%D9%BE%DB%8C%DA%88%DB%8C%D8%A7:%D8%AF%DB%8C%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%85/%D8%B7%D8%B1%D8%B2%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%AA#.D8.B1.D8.A7.D8.A6.DB.92_.D8.B4.D9.85.D8.A7.D8.B1.DB.8C_.D8.A8.D8.B1.D8.A7.D8.A6.DB.92_.D8.AA.D9.86.D8.B5.DB.8C.D8.A8_.D9.86.D8.B3.D8.AA.D8.B9.D9.84.DB.8C.D9.82

There is no vote which oppose Nastaleeq or favoring Naskh. The authorities should keep that consensus in mind while deciding. Hussaini Nastaleeq is suggested by authorities of Bugzilla (Derk-Jan Hartman). We are happy to found Hussaini Nastaleeq another free font. The size of Hussaini Nastaleeq 302 KBs (Kilo Bytes) not in MBs. Authorities here are requested to finalized this matter according to wishes of users who take part in consensus. Personally we have checked the Hussaini Nastaleeq with the help of CSS files. That looks better. Hope authorties here will resolve this matter soon.

Note that, with regards to licensing, Nafees Web Naskh and Nafees Nastaleeq are under the same license and created by the same organization. So both should be similar from a legal risk perspective.

ameen.akbar wrote:

Proceed for any Nastaleeq, which is suitable for you. We dont want Naskh.

urdu.text wrote:

  • only "Nafees Web Naskh" was released under GPL (it is dual license). The rest of nafees family has a custom license. In any case, "Nafees Nastaleeq" being an early effort is not used anymore.
  • many of the nastaleeq font "owners" cannot release it under any license as they have borrowed from Nuri commercial font.
  • Amiri font is used on ar.wikipedia and is also suitable for Urdu as it has many nastaleeq like shapes. This could be added to give users a choice in addition to "Nafees Web Naskh."

http://sourceforge.net/projects/amiri/

  • need to come out of "windows only" mindset. wikipedia cannot be for for windows-only viewers.

syed.wamiq wrote:

(In reply to urdu.text from comment #22)

  • only "Nafees Web Naskh" was released under GPL (it is dual license). The

rest of nafees family has a custom license. In any case, "Nafees Nastaleeq"
being an early effort is not used anymore.

  • many of the nastaleeq font "owners" cannot release it under any license as

they have borrowed from Nuri commercial font.

  • Amiri font is used on ar.wikipedia and is also suitable for Urdu as it has

many nastaleeq like shapes. This could be added to give users a choice in
addition to "Nafees Web Naskh."
http://sourceforge.net/projects/amiri/

  • need to come out of "windows only" mindset. wikipedia cannot be for for

windows-only viewers.

I think you didn't get the point. The licence for Hussaini Nastaliq is compatible with Wikipedia; MIT is not just a custom licence. Next, Hussaini isn't based on ligatures. Others may have borrowed ligatures from the Nuri one, but this is a font with no pre-composed ligatures, very much like Microsoft's proprietary font Urdu Typesetting (and the huge variation in letter shapes means no borrowing between Hussaini and Microsoft's font).

All these facts show that Hussaini is just as good as Nafees Naskh.

urdu.text wrote:

(In reply to syed.wamiq from comment #23)

(In reply to urdu.text from comment #22)

  • only "Nafees Web Naskh" was released under GPL (it is dual license). The

rest of nafees family has a custom license. In any case, "Nafees Nastaleeq"
being an early effort is not used anymore.

  • many of the nastaleeq font "owners" cannot release it under any license as

they have borrowed from Nuri commercial font.

  • Amiri font is used on ar.wikipedia and is also suitable for Urdu as it has

many nastaleeq like shapes. This could be added to give users a choice in
addition to "Nafees Web Naskh."
http://sourceforge.net/projects/amiri/

  • need to come out of "windows only" mindset. wikipedia cannot be for for

windows-only viewers.

I think you didn't get the point. The licence for Hussaini Nastaliq is
compatible with Wikipedia; MIT is not just a custom licence. Next, Hussaini
isn't based on ligatures. Others may have borrowed ligatures from the Nuri
one, but this is a font with no pre-composed ligatures, very much like
Microsoft's proprietary font Urdu Typesetting (and the huge variation in
letter shapes means no borrowing between Hussaini and Microsoft's font).

All these facts show that Hussaini is just as good as Nafees Naskh.

I tried Hussaini on Linux/firefox. It has all the aesthetic shortcoming of the venerable "Nafees Nastaleeq." Not suitable for use aesthetic wise. License wise, it cannot have an open license as the parent "Nafees Nastaleeq" was never released under an open license.

(In reply to urdu.text from comment #24)

License wise, it cannot have an open license as the parent "Nafees
Nastaleeq" was never released under an open license.

This page, which appears to be official, says that Nafees Nastaleeq is under a license which (while rarely used) is an open license:

http://www.cle.org.pk/software/license/Nafees_Nastaleeq_License.html

Is it incorrect?

urdu.text wrote:

The folks at Debian did not like the referenced license. So we had to specially request "Nafees Web Naskh" release under GPL from CRULP which they kindly did. But if this license is good enough for WMF then by all means take it.

Can you point me to the debian discussion? They ship other fonts under a very similar license.

The Debian ticket is https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=703456 but it does not mention or link to a license discussion?

urdu.text: Please provide a link.

urdu.text wrote:

(In reply to Andre Klapper from comment #28)

The Debian ticket is
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=703456 but it does not
mention or link to a license discussion?

urdu.text: Please provide a link.

The last Debian discussion was many years ago (~2004 if memory serves) when "Nafees Web Naskh" was included in Debian. The debian link that you have provided (~2013) seems to be ok with the license but don't know whether they got around to putting the other fonts of the family in the distro.

The official repository for Hussaini Nastaleeq is https://github.com/khaledhosny/hussaini-nastaleeq, it is a derivative of Nafees Nastaleeq with some bug fixes (mostly for Arabic rather than Urdu, so far) and of course it is released under the same license.

(In reply to Khaled Hosny from comment #30)

The official repository for Hussaini Nastaleeq is
https://github.com/khaledhosny/hussaini-nastaleeq, it is a derivative of
Nafees Nastaleeq with some bug fixes (mostly for Arabic rather than Urdu, so
far) and of course it is released under the same license.

Ok, I see https://github.com/khaledhosny/hussaini-nastaleeq/blob/master/LICENSE is the same as http://www.cle.org.pk/software/license/Nafees_Nastaleeq_License.html to which Luis agreed above so we're ready to go.
Kartik, do you still plan to work on this?

ameen.akbar wrote:

We have tries Hussaini Nastaleeq with the help user css. It is the best free alternative of all available font in Urdu. Please complete the process ASAP. Thanks

Thanks for heads up. Yes, I plan to work on this before 10/05.

Change 132164 had a related patch set uploaded by KartikMistry:
Add Hussaini Nastaleeq font for Urdu

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/132164

Change 132164 merged by jenkins-bot:
Add Hussaini Nastaleeq font for Urdu

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/132164

Font has been added. This should be available with next deployment.

ur.wiki users, now that this is fixed can the 40 KB of data URI font in [[w:ur:MediaWiki:Print.css]] be deleted? If not, can you file a bug about supporting that feature in this extension as much as you desire?

ameen.akbar, Khaled, urdu.text, syed.wamiq:

Now that this is fixed can the 40 KB of data URI font in [[w:ur:MediaWiki:Print.css]] be deleted? If not, can you file a bug about supporting that feature in this extension as much as you desire?

For the record, I’m not involved with Urdu Wikipedia in anyway (so can’t do anything about the data URI font). I only commented here to clarify the source and license of Hussaini Nastaleeq.

ameen.akbar wrote:

Hello dear all.
i am very sorry for late reply.
I dont know the technical things which you made. But the site is thousand times better than previous. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much Bugzilla Admins.

ameen.akbar: Hi! Could you try to find somebody on Urdu Wikipedia who is a bit more into technical things, and who could answer comment 38 about the font embedded in [[w:ur:MediaWiki:Print.css]]? Thanks :)

ameen.akbar wrote:

Dear Andre
There is no effect of change of font on Title of page, headings and sub headings. Can you fix this? we want title of pages and heading font should also ameel Noori Nastaleeq.
I am using code (below) in my persoanl vector.css file. This code give my appearance of my wish. Please look into it.

*{
font-family: 'Jameel Noori Nastaleeq', 'Alvi Nastaleeq', 'Urdu Naskh Asiatype',Tahoma,sans-serif;!important
}
/*
#content {
font-size: 130%;
font-family: "Jameel Noori Nastaleeq", "Alvi Nastaleeq";!important
}
textarea {font-family: Jameel Noori Nastaleeq، tahoma !important;}
*/

Hi Ameen,

(In reply to ameen.akbar from comment #42)

There is no effect of change of font on Title of page, headings and sub
headings. Can you fix this?

Sorry but I cannot, because I'm not a developer. Could you please create a new bug report for this, as a followup?

PS: Still welcoming information that answers comment 38. :)

(In reply to ameen.akbar from comment #42)

There is no effect of change of font on Title of page, headings and sub
headings. Can you fix this?

Ah, might be related to bug 63718, as Nemo pointed out.

ameen.akbar wrote:

at [[w:ur:MediaWiki:Print.css]] i think problem is in this line

div#content h1, div#content h2, div#content #firstHeading {

font-family: Titr, 'XB Titre', 'B Titr', Jameel Noori Nastaleeq;

}

Titr is another font family. this is not related to Nastaleeq. just change above lines.

div#content h1, div#content h2, div#content #firstHeading {

font-family: Jameel Noori Nastaleeq;

}

i think after this title and heading font problem should be resolved. If not i will ask you to revert the change.