- WordPress legacy default themes are updated to bundle Google Fonts locally in the theme folder, because of the GDPR rules.
- The WordPress team decided to include Google Fonts in the themes after a website owner was fined for violating the GDPR with Google-hosted webfonts.
- According to a WordPress core contributor, these themes can be updated between versions 6.1 and 6.2.
WordPress contributors announced that legacy default themes are now updated and they now bundle Google Fonts locally. Prior to this, the fonts were being downloaded from the Google CDN and it was the fastest method so far. However, a website was fined due to a violation of the GDPR rules by using Google-hosted fonts, and it became a major concern.
Themes updated
The default themes from Twenty Twelve to Twenty Seventeen are now updated. The team started the process nine months ago. Jonathan Desrosiers, a core contributor to WordPress explained the updates in a ticket and said,
« While updates for bundled themes are usually pushed out in coordination with major and minor releases of WordPress, this is not the only time we can push updates to these themes.
The reason the updates are usually coordinated is that the themes are usually updated to be compatible with new versions of WordPress, so releasing at the same time makes a lot of sense. Also, the number of contributors that focus on the tickets within the Bundled Themes component is usually very low unless these compatibility issues are being addressed.
As long as the new versions of the themes do not depend on unmerged/unreleased changes in WordPress Core, these themes can be updated between 6.1 and 6.2. We can also look at coordinating with the 6.1.x minor releases too, if that seems more appropriate.
I know it is disappointing that these changes will not be ready for 6.1, but it does not necessarily mean another 3-5 month gap until this can be released.»
WordPress also published a guide to help developers with serving a new stylesheet from the theme directory, fixing the editor style within a custom theme-setup function, removing the font stylesheet, and including a custom set of fonts in a child theme. Since it became a major concern after the lawsuit in Germany, the Themes Team urged authors to use locally hosted web fonts. Remotely-hosted fonts are also expected to be banned.