Who is Luc Devroye

[Ryan Maelhorn]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

...and why does he have on of the biggest collections of info about type design on the web?

http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-index.html

[hrant]

Luc is a Canadian academic who's been involved in the world of fonts for a long time; he has historically riled many feathers (although some of his detractors are bird-brains). Even though I don't agree with everything he's said, I do value his integrity, courage and dedication (the last probably answering your "why").

Luc is also a friend of mine. And -contrary to current trends- I don't use that term lightly. I also don't use it as a verb.

hhp

[dezcom]

Luc is a guy who cares and has integrity. Like all type people, his opinions may vary from yours but his do not fluctuate depending on who he is talking to.

[Chris Dean]

How ironic. A site about typography set in tiny, trendy, hard to read grey text.

[5star]

Luc is also a friend of mine. And -contrary to current trends- I don't use that term lightly. I also don't use it as a verb.

+1 me too, I also consider Luc a friend. To get upped onto his site completely blew my mind what an honor! Me amongst all that ...wow! Every time I use one his own fonts* I look forward to sharing what I've done with him!

* Sugaku font series
http://luc.devroye.org/sugaku.html

With all the work he does on that most awesome site I figure he's found away to tap directly into the sun's energy.

n.

[oldnick]

Wow, Ryan—

Luc even cites you. Well, hell: the world really does revolve around you, doesn't it?

[Ryan Maelhorn]

He must have some kind of web crawler code he wrote to simply go out and find everything type related. That site is pretty much exhaustive, I even found myself on there.

What has he done with type other than creating this site? His bio only seems to list his computer programming credentials.

[Chris Dean]

Having a bad day Nick?

[hrant]

Neil, being on Luc's site does not imply friendship. Unless you're using the Facebook definition. There are people on his site who hate his guts. There's even one who's physically assaulted him in a bathroom. But Luc has the integrity to even include people like that.

hhp

[Ryan Maelhorn]

Well, hell: the world really does revolve around you, doesn't it?
Yep. You're just a figment of my imagination. You're probably the result of all those beans I had for lunch today.

[quadibloc]

@hrant:
There are people on his site who hate his guts.

I've enjoyed his site as a resource, and can't imagine, from what little I know of him from having seen his site, why anyone would feel that way about him.

It's not like his site advocates some controversial opinions about typography.

[Bendy]

Funny, I was thinking the same thing. He's astonishingly prompt at updating designers' pages.

[Ryan Maelhorn]

How ironic. A site about typography set in tiny, trendy, hard to read grey text.

The site could use a little CSS love, for sure. But that really doesn't diminish the greatness of the site at all to me.

[John Hudson]

John: ...can't imagine, from what little I know of him from having seen his site, why anyone would feel that way about him.

Back when Luc was active in comp.fonts and other discussion forums, he was very outspoken in opposition to intellectual property protection for type design, so rubbed a lot of designers the wrong way. It wasn't just the opinions that pissed people off, but the fact that they came from a tenured academic who can do and say pretty much whatever he wants without any consequences. It seemed too easy, from such a position, to make pronouncements about things that other people perceive as affecting their livelihoods.

As for his site, I've never found it very useful for the things that interest me, despite or perhaps because of its unselective exhaustiveness. Huge numbers of the links are dead, especially in the non-Latin pages, and appear not to have been checked since he first added them, sometimes many years ago.

[hrant]

Good point about the "too easy". Another good point is that some people perceive a possibility of making a livelihood where there really isn't one and it's not a disagreeable academic's fault if they have to resort to living in the boondocks to be able to avoid earning a living in an undesirable way. Ergo: it's also "too easy" to blame others for one's weak grasp of reality.

BTW John, I don't mean you. :-) I think you're capable of making a living in type pretty much anywhere. But most type designers are not.

hhp

[5star]

Neil, being on Luc's site does not imply friendship.

True that hrant, I'm referring to our private email correspondence(s). He has always been a gentlemen to me and very engaging.
I'd also like to say for me his website has given me far more than I could ever repay. I've learnt so much. I only hope that it's around for decades to come for other designers (or whomever) to tap into.

n.

[hrant]

Humans being reactionary creatures, much web history will be lost before we start robustly archiving. But it's not like we've done a great job preserving "regular" history.

hhp

[Chris Dean]

@hrant: A paper internet

[quadibloc]

@John Hudson:
Ah.

It certainly is true that IP protection is essential to allow people to make a living from their creativity or inventiveness; it promotes a faster pace of creation and progress.

It does, however, for example, also create a large part of the barriers to entry in nearly every industry that maintain the divide between the world's rich and poor countries.

This is a very complicated issue.

[John Hudson]

It is indeed a complicated issue in a complicated world, which is why I'm generally unimpressed by the simplistic 'everything should be free' view, despite being sympathetic to the social vision that it presumes. But my intention was not to start a discussion about intellectual property here, only to explain the background to how Luc managed to piss off some folk.

[hrant]

Yes, thanks. I wasn't even on comp.fonts, but I'm now feeling much older than most people here. :-/

hhp

[oldnick]

This is a very complicated issue.

No, it's not. Artist should be paid for their work, just like butchers get paid for a leg of lamb. “Virtual” goods are still goods…

[abattis]

It certainly is true that IP protection is essential to allow people to make a living from their creativity or inventiveness; it promotes a faster pace of creation and progress.

I think that only used to be true in the past, and is now an outdated view; I think monopoly rights restrictions today tend to retard progress, cf Benkler.

No, it's not. Artist should be paid for their work, just like butchers get paid for a leg of lamb. “Virtual” goods are still goods…

I agree labour should be paid, but I don't think that artists or anyone else deserves to be paid for their work. People deserve to earn what others are willing to pay them for; if someone's art is shit, they're shit outta luck. ;p

And I disagree that "“Virtual” goods are still goods" - digital works and physical property are fundamentally different in nature, since digital works can be duplicated and redistributed, and modified, in a way that physical property can not. But the labour/service of creating the works remains open as viable commercial activity.

[John Hudson]

I think that only used to be true in the past, and is now an outdated view; I think monopoly rights restrictions today tend to retard progress

As Utah Philips said, the past didn't go anywhere. The fact that intellectual property laws have been hijacked by corporations doesn't mean that the original reasons why those laws came to be seen as a good idea have gone away. Indeed, today they are often the only thing standing between a creative individual and the uncompensated economic exploitation of his work by those same corporations. If you want to do away with corporate monopoly rights restrictions, you need to come up with an alternative mechanism to prevent exploitation of individual creators.

[hrant]

The problem isn't the desire for money - that's a natural human trait; the problem is when that desire is made the heart of a political system, which unavoidably leads to inhuman corporate domination. But no amount of pedantic discussion by peons on a typographic forum is going to change that. Gotta go guerrilla.

hhp