Comment 12 for bug 615435

Khaled: I think the implication here that the Ubuntu Font Family will be:

 1. a Libre typeface
 2. with OpenType features
 3. deployed (by default) on *alot* of Desktops

at which point the incentive to fix applications is there, which will in-turn mean fixing the whole stack. Is that what you were worried about (the scale of it)? If so, I think it's what's being seen as a net-positive in the long-run from Mark's point-of-view.

Regarding the private-use area (which is clearly marked as such), it provides a stop-gap means for accessing otherwise unmapped glyphs on older systems. It's certainly not to be encouraged, but is it a bad thing to provide that level of compatibility. At the moment, if somebody asks "how do I get such-and-such", we have an answer for them even if their software isn't OpenType alternatives-ready.