Mac Users' Internet Experience to Retain Same Fonts

thefickler sent in this article that opens, "Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended, thanks to the renewal of a font licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple. At TypeCon2007 Microsoft and Apple announced they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows core fonts. Back in 1996 Microsoft started the "Core fonts for the Web" initiative. The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts," and are therefore widely used by Internet developers."

Comments

It works!

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. Yup, everything looks just fine on both my Windows XP and Windows Vista computers! Life is good.

Re:It works!

[Divebus]

Microsoft cares about a uniform web experience? There's a "Lost and Found" story for ya'.

Why was the project terminated?

[Gothmolly]

Perhaps, after 6 years, MS realized it had achieved font lock-in?

It seems to me, if you give something out, then its out, and not yours to later revoke.

btw, the submission is verbatim cut from the source article, nice job 'editting'.

Re:Why was the project terminated?

[wall0159]

Exactly. That's the way it reads to me. Get it accepted as a standard, and then revoke it.

This type of behaviour should be remembered when thinking about ODF/OOXML. Seems to me that the words "Microsoft", and "standards" just don't go together, and that if you care, even remotely, about a level-software-playing-field you should be avoiding their products.

What're the MS fanboys' take on this?

Re:Why was the project terminated?

[l33t.g33k]

One reason MS discontinued the initiative, according to this, is because people were frequently abusing the EULA by repackaging the fonts in other programs.

Re:Why was the project terminated?

[l33t.g33k]

Yes, once installed, it's available to all programs on the PC. However, many programs (especially on Linux, such as CodeWeavers/CrossOver Office and the installer for Debian) were automatically installing the fonts if they weren't already there. While that's convenient for the end user, MS felt slighted!

Huh?

[CrAlt]

Ive never noticed a difference from Firefox on my OSX machine and Firefox on my linux laptop. What sites are really using MS only fonts?

Re:Huh?

[CastrTroy]

A web designer should never assume that the user has any specific fonts on their machine. If your site doesn't look good with any serif,sans-serif, and monospace fonts, that I choose to use, then you didn't do a very good job with it. There's some other nice fonts, like fantasy, and cursive, that I would try to stay away from. Stick to the first 3 I mentioned, and stop worrying about whether or not you site looks exactly the same on everyone elses computer/browser as it does on yours. Because it never will.

Re:Huh?

[VGPowerlord]

Cascading Style Sheet docs recommend specifying multiple fonts for exactly this reason, suggesting that you use one of the generic font family names last as a fallback (serif, sans-serif, cursive, fantasy, or monospace).

Re:Huh?

[shutdown -p now]

Cascading Style Sheet docs recommend specifying multiple fonts for exactly this reason, suggesting that you use one of the generic font family names last as a fallback (serif, sans-serif, cursive, fantasy, or monospace).

Better yet, restrict yourself to generic font families only. I know better what serif or sans-serif font I prefer to see on my monitor and with my antialiasing settings. Some fonts look great with antialiasing enabled but awful without it; some require subpixel antialiasing to look great and some don't; some Microsoft fonts are specifically designed to look good with Windows font rendering engine, and suck with FreeType. Don't think you can guess how it'll best look on my system!

Eww, I wish that license would expire

[_merlin]

Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana are all horrible fonts. I'd rather have my Mac automatically substitute decent fonts when they're specified. Isn't the point of HTML, and hence the web, to specify the structure of a document rather than its appearance? Shouldn't the appearance depend on my preferences?

Re:Eww, I wish that license would expire

[catwh0re]

I find it ironic that Apple are paying MS for Arial.. when Arial was MS trying to make sure they didn't have to pay licensing for Helvetica. Apple license a number of fonts from their originating foundries(where available) instead of making near-duplicates which are considered by those in the industry as the equivalent of piracy.

A bit of history on why Arial is so awful (in short). It's a font called Grotesque built to the proportions of Helvetica (so that it can be substituted for Helvetica without changing the page length.) As a result it has terrible eveness and is generally avoided by designers not out of design-snobbery, but due to how Arial negatively affects "grey area".

Microsoft have a history of fucking with typefaces to avoid paying licensing fees. Repeating this act recently with a their new vista font "Segoe" which is almost a carbon-copy of Frutiger. It's subtle differences can only be seen when enlarging the type beyond the 16pt standard test for font similarity. (A test which Segoe failed against Frutiger, flunking it's attempt at registration with the EU trademark office.) Also in Vista the use of Segoe is at 8, 9 and 10 point, figures significantly smaller than the generous 16pt test EU test.

Re:Eww, I wish that license would expire

[Mr. Slippery]

This is important because it changes line-breaks, overlays, and a number of other things...I don't want my bank account to look like it was written in "kid script" or even worse hide a negative sign or lose several zeros due to a forced line-break or substituted font with no equivalent character.

If a bank's website - any website, really - is dependant on the presense of certain fonts or the use of certain font sizes in order to be useful, the designer needs to be take out and severely beaten.

Re:Eww, I wish that license would expire

[Anonymous Coward]

I love watching slashdotters talk about fonts since it's clear they don't know much.

It's a font called Grotesque

Grotesques are an entire class of fonts. It's not a single font. Perhaps you're thinking of Akzidenz Grotesk.

Re:Eww, I wish that license would expire

[NMerriam]

Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana are all horrible fonts.

I won't disagree on Arial or TNR, but Verdana is a very well-designed font for use on low-res screen displays with sub-pixel rendering. But that's not how most people use it, they think it is just another "kinda Helvetica" that happens to be wider than Arial. In fact, all of the original design web fonts MS released were very well-made and well-designed, but are just very rarely well-used.

The world would not be much poorer had this licensing agreement expired, indeed it would save me the hassle of telling Safari and Firefox to substitute decent fonts for Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New.

Re:Eww, I wish that license would expire

[forkazoo]

If a bank's website - any website, really - is dependant on the presense of certain fonts or the use of certain font sizes in order to be useful, the designer needs to be take out and severely beaten.

I Agree! But, I think that when you say "severely," that word needs to be in 24 point bold italic print in order to get the point across more precisely.

Re:Eww, I wish that license would expire

[Chief Camel Breeder]

"Microsoft have a history of fucking with typefaces to avoid paying licensing fees."

So it's good if a FOSS developer makes an ugly-but-useful clone of something, but bad when MS do it?

Nice job "spelling"

[xmark]

Just kidding...seriously, I agree that if you give something to the web community as an act of goodwill, that goodwill pretty much evaporates (and then some) when you start tugging on the attached strings.

a wild guess

[User 956]

While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts"

I'm guessing the "Goatse Wingding super font pack" is not on that list.

Re:a wild guess

[Dachannien]

I'm guessing the "Goatse Wingding super font pack" is not on that list.

Today's episode of Slashdot has been brought to you by the letter O.

You aren't a designer

[_merlin]

You, like most users, are not a designer, and don't notice the subtle differences between the proprietary fonts used on a Mac and the free (as in speech and beer) fonts used on Linux. You probably think Arial and Helvetica look the same, too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and just highlights one reason that most people won't really care whether this license is extended or not - most people just want legible text so they can get the information.

On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint. But I don't care too much for this license, either. I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.

So all in all, I don't see how the extension of this license is a good thing for anyone.

Re:You aren't a designer

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license.

Actually, Monotype originally developed Ariel for IBM in the early 80s, except at the time it was known as Sonoran Sans. Sonoran Sans was then repackaged as Ariel for Microsoft in the early 90s.

Re:You aren't a designer

[mrchaotica]

Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness.

Hey, I like Verdana (aside from the fact that it renders larger at a given point size than other fonts). Just because it may have been designed for some particular purpose doesn't mean it isn't pretty!

Re:You aren't a designer

[gEvil (beta)]

(aside from the fact that it renders larger at a given point size than other fonts)

The point size of a font is measured from the top of the highest ascender (think l's, b's, and d's) to the bottom of the lowest descender (p's, q's, and y's). A typeface can be specified to be 14 points, but if it has a small x-height with ridiculously long ascenders and descenders, it will appear tiny. Verdana happens to have a large x-height, so at the same point size it appears larger than other typefaces that have a more "normal" x-height.

Re:You aren't a designer

[1729]

On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint.

That reminds me of this message on Donald Knuth's webpage. As much as I appreciate both the fonts and the typesetting provided by TeX, I doubt I would ever notice the difference between the deltas.

Re:You aren't a designer

[jalefkowit]

I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.

Good news! You can have the Web this way right now. (At least, you can if you're using Firefox; Safari probably has a similar feature, but I don't use it so I can't guarantee that.)

1. Go to Firefox preferences panel
2. Choose "Content" tab
3. Under "Fonts & Colors", click "Advanced"
4. Choose the fonts you want to use everywhere: in your case, Helvetica for sans serif faces, and Monaco for proportional
5. Uncheck the box labeled "Allow sites to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above"
6. Click "OK" button

Now the Web will be rendered in exactly the fonts you specified, and you never have to be offended by the sight of Arial again :-)

Re:You aren't a designer

[grahamd0]

IAANAD (I am also not a designer), in fact, I'm a developer, so designers are both my life's blood and my mortal enemies (oh, what tragedy!).

Is it possible to explain what is so offensive about arial other than it being common and Microsoftish? I can spot the difference, and I like helvetica, but it's just honestly not that big of a deal for me.

This strikes me as one of those "menus belong on the top-left of the screen!" type of arguments, where the person making the argument claims that it's an objective statement of fact, and one can make an equally logical argument against it. Indeed, merely being able to say, "I prefer Y" makes a statement of "X is objectively better" somewhat dubious.

I'm really interested in hearing, specifically, what makes arial an unacceptable substitute. In your post, you don't actually give any single reason why arial is so offensive other than it being inexpensive, which, IMHO, is not valid in and of itself unless you're a snob attempting to appeal to other snobs.

I don't meant to imply that you're a snob. I'm sure you have good reasons for making that statement, and I would genuinely like to hear them.

Re:You aren't a designer

[Mattintosh]

Here's the Safari version:

1. Go to Safari's preferences window
2. Choose "Appearance" pane
3. Choose the fonts you want substituted for the "Standard Font" and the "Fixed-Width Font". In your case, Helvetica for Standard and Monaco for Fixed-width
4. Close the preferences window

Note that the default font in the "Standard Font" is Times (not TNR!), which is not sans serif. There's no option to choose a sans serif font separately. Presumably, Safari uses the system font (Gill Sans, IIRC) as its sans serif font. Though as I type this, the text in /. appears to be using Helvetica (and I have default font settings). And, yes, I know what to look for to tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica.

Re:You aren't a designer

[bendodge]

My inner self must be a designer then, because it always takes a few minutes to get acquainted when I switch OS's. I am surprised that more people don't notice.

Re:You aren't a designer

[tobiasly]

On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint. I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.

Wow, you could get a job writing a column about fonts for a newspaper or something.

Re:You aren't a designer

[moreati]

you never have to be offended by the sight of Arial again :-)

Surely you mean the site of Arial?

Re:You aren't a designer

[Sycraft-fu]

"Displays have higher resolutions now"

Really? Which ones? When I look around, I don't see displays pushing past 100PPI much for the desktop. The most common LCDs are between about 85PPI (things like 19" 4:3s) and 100PPI (things like 20" widescreens). I just can't find any normal desktop displays, even high end graphics ones, that push past that. Only in the laptop arena do I see higher PPI and even then it caps out around 130PPI (17" 1920x1200 widescreens). Compared to print at least this is extremely low PPI and it really isn't any higher than what we've had in the past with computers. Even Apple doesn't break this trend. Their monitors are a little higher PPI than most for example their 23" is the same resolution as 24" panels, (at least until they stop buying the 23" IPS panel and go with the new 24" IPS panel that NEC is using) but we are still talking under 100PPI.

So where are the high resolution displays? I don't mean showing me something that is available for a special purpose at a big price, I mean where are the high rez displays on the market now, that a consumer might buy? I sure as hell can't find them, and I don't find that graphics systems are ready to drive them. Even high end graphics consumer cards seem to top out at 2560x1600. You are talking things like the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 (which costs damn near $3000) before you see support for higher resolutions.

While I'll certainly agree that the over all number of pixels on desktop monitors is going up, they are doing it by getting larger, not by getting more pixels per inch. We are still in the same effective PPI range as we were when LCDs first started hitting the desktop.

Re:You aren't a designer

[pla]

I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.

So download a Monaco TTF, and override it in your browser preferences as the default monospace/np/fixed font.

You have it right that this "act of goodwill" on MS's part means nothing to most people - But for the wrong reason... If the music industry thinks it has a problem with getting people to recognize its copyrights, I pity the font industry. At least most people "know" copying music counts as wrong on some level. Copying fonts, no one even thinks twice about, they view it as more of a program dependancy to resolve. "This popup says I should use font X... Okay, let's download this 1000 bitstream fonts pack and see if it has it. Nope? Okay, how about 2215 linotype fonts? Ah, that did it."

One of Apple's worst decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see what Apple gained here:

1. Arial - Crap
2. Times New Roman - Crap
3. Comic Sans - Quite possibly the font of the antichrist
4. Courier New - Crap and Apple has access to Courier (the good one) anyway
5. Georgia - Decent but could be replaced with Garamond in any situation for better results
6. Impact - Futura with a missing chromosome
7. Trebuchet - I was mistaken, THIS is the font of the antichrist
8. Verdana - Doesn't Apple own their own variant of Myriad? What the hell do they need this for?
9. Andale Mono - Could be worse, but why care when you have the rights to use Monaco?
10. Webdings - wow, just wow

I sincerely hope Apple didn't spend a lot of money on this crap.

Re:One of Apple's worst decisions

[moosesocks]

I don't think he's joking.

There are some beautiful typefaces out there, and Microsoft has more or less veritably shat upon the world of typography by imposing Arial and Times New Roman on the world for over a decade.

As a concession, some of the new office 2007 fonts are quite nice, and Consolas is probably one of the best fixed-width fonts out there.

Apple's built-in font collection is quite a bit better, and their font-rendering system is vastly superior to just about anything else out there.

Re:One of Apple's worst decisions

[Qbertino]

I'm a Webdesigner and I actually like Trebuchet. ... Does that make me a follower of the antichrist?

See the difference

[QuantumG]

Here's a little page I whipped up with the different fonts from five different combinations of browser and OS.

Personally, I've never really been able to tell the difference between one font or another :)

Re:See the difference

[Zarel]

Here's a little page I whipped up with the different fonts from five different combinations of browser and OS.

Personally, I've never really been able to tell the difference between one font or another :) Your Windows screenshot has no anti-aliasing. Retake that screenshot with ClearType on, or else that's really unfair to Windows.

Re:See the difference

[Jarjarthejedi]

Man...the Apple one looks nice...if that's the result of not renewing a license I hope Microsoft 'forgets' to renew :P.

Re:See the difference

[Wyzard]

ClearType's "rainbows" are an optimization meant specifically for LCD monitors, to gain a bit of extra sharpness. It doesn't work on CRTs; you see the colors but you don't gain the sharpness.

Windows has had "standard" anti-aliasing (using only shades of grey, no "rainbows") since Windows 95, much longer than ClearType has been around. However, for some reason, the "standard" AA only kicks in at larger sizes; typical sizes (12pt, etc.) are left with the jaggies. That's why many people think the only options are ClearType or no AA at all.

Microsoft has a "ClearType Tuner" program that you can use to adjust how the ClearType font rasterizer works. I haven't used it, but it probably has a "contrast" slider for adjusting the amount of coloration used. Turn that down to zero, and you'll get what the "standard" AA ought to be, smoothed at all sizes but without the LCD-specific coloration trick.

Whatever happened to content vs presentation?

[NoMaster]

allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers.

Except that the whole point of using a simplified SGML (HTML) on the WWW was to separate content from presentation - a fact maybe forgotten, but even more important now what with the spread of WWW content to different classes of devices (TV, mobiles, handhelds, etc).

Specific fonts (or, correctly, "typefaces" - a given font is a particular incarnation of a typeface, including size, so Comic Sans 10pt is a different font to Comic Sans 12pt) shouldn't be necessary - families of typefaces maybe, if you're trying to achieve a particular style, but not fonts or even necessarily typefaces.

Trying to nail presentation of a presentation language down to specific fonts or typefaces is about as sensible as demanding your viewer's browser window be 800x600. If you absolutely can't live without your web-based masterpiece being presented in point-perfect font specifivity, present it as a .gif or .pdf...

Re:Whatever happened to content vs presentation?

[Dr. Cody]

Specific fonts (or, correctly, "typefaces" - a given font is a particular incarnation of a typeface, including size, so Comic Sans 10pt is a different font to Comic Sans 12pt) shouldn't be necessary - families of typefaces maybe, if you're trying to achieve a particular style, but not fonts or even necessarily typefaces.

I spent a few years working with desktop publishing gurus turned web developers, and I heard this goddamn typeface/font distinction made all the time.

It drove me nuts, but, in the end, one of us was correct about the use of a common technical definition, and the other had sex with women.

Re:Whatever happened to content vs presentation?

[foniksonik]

All browsers now have a user specified stylesheet available. You are more than welcome to customize your experience there as the css spec states that a user supplied stylesheet overrides the server supplied styles (unless the server calls out !important, in which case the user must also call out !important).

OTOH if you would like to see and experience the website the way the designer intended, thereby seeing the content within the context of a presentation... then allow it to happen. It's still your choice, always has been always will be (hopefully).

There are times when information presented out of context becomes less successful at communication. Markup and semantics simply are not nuanced enough to communicate mood, they do well with meaning but mood and character are out of their scope.

A fast car is still a fast car (but not as fast) with an ugly non-aerodynamic body style... but it will never feel as fast (or be as fast) as a fast car with a sporty and aerodynamic body style.

Embrace extend extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

I this is just part of an evil plot to get Mac users used to using these fonts then later MS will make you buy the vowels.

Re:Embrace extend extinguish

[letsgolightning]

Mcrsft wld nvr d tht!

Very funny you guys

[suv4x4]

"Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended"

What's Wrong With Apple's Font Rendering?
Welcome to the blurry, but fast, browser...
Apple and Microsoft have always disagreed in how to display fonts on computer displays...

Re:Very funny you guys

[atrocious cowpat]

You might have also given a link to the slightly less inflammatory titled folluw-up post to "What's Wrong With Apple's Font Rendering", called:

Font Rendering: Respecting The Pixel Grid
I've finally determined What's Wrong With Apple's Font Rendering. As it turns out, there actually wasn't anything wrong with Apple's font rendering, per se. Apple simply chose a different font rendering philosophy, as Joel Spolsky explains:... (link to article)

Rather good and concise explanation of the different strategies of font-rendering.

RAWR!

[ShamrawkNRoll88]

At the risk of being modded troll...

WE NEED MORE OPEN SOURCE FONTS!

Microsoft is stifling competition in the font war by forcing internet font lock in! Linux users, and the tech-proletariat in general, demand an end to this typeface travesty!

You aren't a small handheld device.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness."

Let me introduce you to this new fangled device known as...a smart phone.

Re:You aren't a small handheld device.

[Yoozer]

But because smartphones usually run in portrait mode (240 x 320 instead of 320 x 240) Verdana is too wide. Windows Mobile 6 has a narrow font (with anti-aliasing) that is very legible. Even then, Tahoma, not Verdana used to be the font of choice in WM5 and before (Windows 2000, XP); the difference is obvious if you compare 'm side by side.

A question to the world:

[pizzach]

Has anyone noticed that when you use a Mac for a while, Windows fonts suddenly feel really pixelated with Cleartype?

Then if you use a PC for a while, when you come back to a Mac the fonts feel really blury?

Re:A question to the world:

[Heian-794]

The first thing you have to know about Microsoft's and Apple's attempts at clearer type is that Windows ClearType breaks each pixel into three sub-pixels sitting side by side, and thus only uses the horizontal axis, whereas Apple softens the sharp lines both horizontally and vertically.

This means that at large sizes, where you might not even be able to discern individual pixels all that well, OSX font smoothing looks great. It smooths things all the way around rather than in just one direction.

Remember, though, that pixels consist (in general) of red, green, and blue side-by-side (left, center, and right). You can't break a pixel into top, center, and bottom sub-pixels unless you rotate your screen 90 degrees..

At small sizes, though, Windows' system assures that the height of characters is a fixed, integral number of pixels. Unlike with OSX, in horizontal lines a line of black pixels will definitely be present. The middles of the letters B and E at an 8-pixel-high font size, for example, will probably have (vertically from the top) black, white, white, black, white, white, white, black. (Forget serifs for now.) The Mac will attempt to "smooth" those lines out even though there's not much space in which to do it (since you can't break a pixel vertically). Thus you get horizontal lines that become halftone grays as the renderer battles bravely to get "smooth" lines without regard for the increased difficulty of vertical smoothing.

Apple doesn't seem to expect people to attempt smooth fonts at sizes below about 9 or 10, if you look at the System Preferences. Windows will smooth them out for you at any size.

I find myself wishing for Windows-style ClearType at small sizes, and on the Mac I end up simply viewing the Web and word processing documents at immense font sizes rather than strain my eyes on the gray blurs. That's fine in these days when 1024x768 has become a small screen resolution, but it is a waste of resolution. I'd rather fit a lot more on that big screen! But I suspect that Apple's system will come out ahead as screen resolutions (both in DPI and in total) increase and we have less and less need to actually see 7-pixel-high text.

Re:A question to the world:

[Idaho]

Has anyone noticed that when you use a Mac for a while, Windows fonts suddenly feel really pixelated with Cleartype?

Then if you use a PC for a while, when you come back to a Mac the fonts feel really blury?

Yes. This article explains exactly why this is the case.

The "too long; didn't read" summary: Microsoft optimizes font display for on-screen readability, whereas Apple optimizes for getting the same results (page coverage or "grayness %") on screen as you would obtain in print.

Monotype Grotesque

[tepples]

It's a font called Grotesque Grotesques are an entire class of fonts. It's not a single font. Perhaps you're thinking of Akzidenz Grotesk. Wikipedia and its citations say Arial was a stretched version of "Monotype Grotesque" published by Monotype. But Helvetica, Univers, and Arial are considered to have been inspired by Akzidenz Grotesk.

Move out of the United States

[tepples]

The windows ones look the best to me. I prefer that to the AA fonts that always looked too blurry to me. I wish there was a way to replicate that look, exactly as it is in Windows with Linux Move out of the United States and recompile FreeType with support for Apple patents. You can move back once the TrueType hinting patents expire.

Liberation fonts...

[nigham]

Why don't we all install liberation fonts and be done with it?

Re:Liberation fonts...

[Trogre]

Because the silly sausages released it under a licence that prohibits any distribution whatsoever.

Some other terms incompatible with "Microsoft"

[cmacb]

Ethics, honesty, style, humor, etc.

Re:Why was the BS perpetuated?

[raylu]

"Perhaps, after 6 years, MS realized it had achieved font lock-in?"
That's six years that the FSF and RMS could have came out with their own solution. Instead we have proof that the cathedral model still rules for the most important things.

A solution to what? The font problem? There was no problem after a standard was defined, and MS did that already.

Unless you mean the problem to lock-in. In which case...

"It seems to me, if you give something out, then its out, and not yours to later revoke."
That's slashthinking for you. Just because something is on the internet doesn't mean it's public domain. Besides they aren't "revoking" it to individuals, but giving Apple permission to continue to use them.

While we are well aware it's not public domain, the argument here is that it should be. Damn, do we need to be as explicit as lawyers here?

From what I can tell (not that I've looked into this at all), MS said that these fonts would be safe to use on the web because everyone would have them. In other words, it would be a standard. In that sense, they are definitely to blame for revoking it (or, as you would like to put it, defining-it-as-a-standard-and-then-charging-for-th e-use-of).

Arial and Helvetica (was Re:You aren't a designer)

[Jon_E]

There's an excellent article here on the Arial/MS font bastardization issue.

Agreed .. I would much rather see the licensing and control flow back to the foundries like linotype who have a much better feel for layout and design than microsoft. If you're ever in NY, there's an excellent exhibit at the MoMA on Helvetica that has a 5 minute loop from Michael Price's excellent film.

Re:That would not be so horrible, and is available

[twitter]

Or right here on the Sourceforge network in source RPM form, but don't let that stop your bitching.

A link to cab extraction utilities and a pile of .exe "form" fonts? How friendly. Must be that cross platform obfuscation M$ likes to talk up.^M

Re:What's the point (size)?

[gEvil (beta)]

You're correct. In the days of movable type, type was measured based on the size of the entire body which held the character. And a true typographical point is approximately 1/72 of an inch (and also depends on whose system you are using, as there have been a few over the past five or six centuries). 1/72 of an inch was chosen a few decades ago by Adobe when they developed PostScript.