Microsoft Typography Withdraws Free Web Fonts

jonadab writes: "Microsoft Typography has for years provided a set of very nice True-Type fonts for free-as-in-without-monetary-cost, including the excellent Andale Mono (the only scalable fixed-width font I really like). They are gone. Here is the Microsoft page where they formerly were, which now tersely explains that they're not available any longer. There is an article about this on extremetech. According to the article, Microsoft says the withdrawal of the fonts at about the same time as the LinuxWorld is coincidence. The article also references a Debian package that has been removed from the distro because of this. If I understand my rumours correctly, it was a package that downloaded the fonts from MS, displayed their EULA, and allowed the user to extract and install the fonts. It was possible to do the same thing using other distros. Guess it's time for the OSS people to make some decent-looking scalable both-screen-and-printer fonts (preferably TrueType). At minimum, we need nice-looking serif proportional (to replace Verdana), a sans proportional (to replace Georgia), and a mostly-sans fixed (to replace Andale Mono), all with good language support. This should have been done a long time ago, since the MS fonts were, albeit $0, not licensed in an open fashion. We always knew we were relying on MS Typography's generosity, and that these could disappear at any time. But now the need is more urgent."

Comments

LICENSE

[jmd!]

1. GRANT OF LICENSE. This EULA grants you the following rights:

* Installation and Use. You may install and use an unlimited number of
copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

* Reproduction and Distribution. You may reproduce and distribute an
unlimited number of copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT; provided that each copy
shall be a true and complete copy, including all copyright and trademark
notices, and shall be accompanied by a copy of this EULA. Copies of the
SOFTWARE PRODUCT may not be distributed for profit either on a standalone
basis or included as part of your own product.

So uhm, looks like I can distribute it without charge. Someone give me a place to stash 1.5M:

-rw-r--r-- 1 jmd jmd 1524606 Dec 7 2000 truetype.tar.gz

Re:LICENSE

[erikdalen]

They're already distributed here

(An easy way to install Microsoft's TrueType core fonts on linux)

/Erik

Commission Matthew Carter to best his own Verdana

[bostoncello]

It is hard to read what M$ intends to do by removing free TT fonts from public download, but I cannot see it as a good thing. Basically, M$ is creating a condition in which browsers running on *nix may not (at some point) be able to render Verdana, which is probably one of the most common fonts on the Web. If Verdana is not installed on (say) a Linux PC, all its browsers (Mozilla, Konquerer) will need to degrade to another alternative non-serif font, unless Verdana can be installed in some way or licensed for distribution with Linux distros.

Keep in mind that M$ commissioned one of the great designers (Matthew Carter,of Bitstream, now of the firm Carter and Cone) to design these TT fonts for onscreen legibility. It will not be easy to replace them (Verdana in particular) with another freely-available font.

However, the OSS community is is dire need of a set of fonts that compete with those available on the M$ platforms, both for on screen use and for printing, especially if it hopes to expand onto the office desktop.

Suggestion to the OSS community: have the emerging alliances between the various distros (e.g.,LSB) create a shared fund, used to commission someone to design a serif and non-serif font for general use on all platforms (including Linux). The goal should be to create a font as good or better than the ones that Matthew Carter designed. And give Matthew Carter first dibs on trying to best himself, thereby ensuring that whatever succeeds Verdana will be of the same style and eloquence as Verdana itself.

In the meantime, (and this may be flamebait) distros may wish pay the evil empire to license Verdana and Georgia for distribution with Linux.

fonts.gnu.org? You can help [long, sorry]

[Ankh]

Do we need a Free Font Foundation?

I've tried for some time to get some high quality fonts "donated" to Gnome or XFree86; although this work is still continuing, we're not getting very far. Here's why. Maybe you can help.

It's *difficult* (as others have said) to design a successful typeface. For a poorly hinted font, an hour or two on each character design will get you basic latin one in about five weeks, and then you spend another two weeks with hinting. If that sounds a lot of time, remember that you need to adjust sidebearings (nn sit further apart than oo, or you'll get spots of light and dark on a page/screen, for example) and kerning (Wa closer together than Wh, "r," closer than "n,", "fk" further apart to aviod a glob at the top.

It turns out that an R isn't simply a P with a tail, an E sn't an F with an extra leg, in most designs, particularly the more calligraphic such as Palatino.

So, it's a lot of work to make a font, and for Linux and the Free Software movement, we want fonts that support as many languages as possible, and as many scripts as possible, so that as many people as possible can use the software.

That means even mnore work, and a lot of time from people who are primarily creative artists and designers, with a strong techincal background.

There are three main font formats in widespread professional use today: TrueType, Type 1 and OpenType.

It turns out that TrueType fonts are more expensive to produce in high quality than Type 1 outlines, because with Type 1 outlines, most of the hinting is in the renderer, so the code is only written once; with TrueType, individual fonts have bytecode instructions to do hinting, and it's different for each font.

OpenType lets you embed both Type 1 and TT outlines in the same font file, along with metadata for supporting lots of languages. So if yuo use Type 1 outlines, you avoid the Apple patent on TrueType.

One way forward would be to gather enough money to pay some font designers to make some new fonts. Another way would be to make a one-time payment to buy rights to existing fonts. Probably best would be a mixture: start with existing fonts and extend their Unicode coverage.

What would a Free Font be? Probably we need something slightly different from the GPL. In particular, it might not be OK to redistribute a modified Free Font without making clear that you have changed it, because otherwise you could reduce its quality or destroy the artistic integrity of the design, and give the artist who designed it a bad reputation.

Font *outlines* (i.e. the design of a typeface) are protected by copyright outside the USA, because they are recognised as artistic works. In the US, they are not protected, for historical reasons. In both cases, the font *names* are often registered trademarks, so you see Palladium because Palatino is a trademark, I think of Linotype; Dutch instead of Times (Monotype), Swiss instead of Helvetica, and so on.

This means it's not OK to start with existing designs, unless they are old enough - e.g. using the original designs of William Caslon from the 1720s is OK, using Adobe Caslon is not OK, at least not without permission.

So, we need type designers to give permission, or to make new designs.

We need more work on the FreeType Type 1 support, so that we don't have to worry about the software patent on TrueType rendering.

We need an independent legal entity so that designers have someone to negotiate with, and so that money can be paid to them. Maybe the Gnome Foudnation or XFree86.org would do, as long as the fonts can be used with any software, not just Gnome or the X Window System.

I do not have enough time to do a lot of work here, but I *am* willing to help introduce people to font designers and other resources, and to help explain the technological issues.

Hacking on a font renderer takes serious skill, as does designing fonts. But maybe programmers can contribute to FreeType, and to pfaedit (how about a Gnome port, too?) and to ghostscript. Programs like Mandrake's FontDrake can be worked on (it's GPL'd I think).

Who wants to help build a font portal, somewhere people can download Free Fonts from, and with links to font designers who can help customise fonts, and to non-free fonts you can buy?

Who wants to donate a server and some bandwidth?
Set up a mailing list?

Remember, we need fonts that are Free, not just ones that don't cost anything, and we need high quality, and support for lots of languages.

If you read this far, my thanks, and let's make something happen. Post here, or feel free to send email [liam at holoweb dot net, will work]

Liam