Edited by author 06-26-2003 06:11 AM
Note that you can still download the core fonts from http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/, as the license allows redistribution.

I believe the terms of the license under which Microsoft originally released the fonts allowed them to be distributed freely. Consequently, the Linux community still uses them, only shipped with the previous license.

I think I have the details of the licensing story wrong, but the bottom line is that the fonts are still alive and well in the Linux community. If you use Debian, they're in the 'msttcorefonts' package.

Just want to say to Mr. Dvorak, that I always enjoy his articles, I think he's great, keep on going! Thanks.

david nalle's fonts probably aren't distributed by linux distributors because the license does not permit it.

bitstream vera (http://www.bitstream.com/categories/products/fonts/vera/) is a family of fonts being released under an open license agreement. (more at http://www.gnome.org/fonts/)

Edited by author 06-15-2003 02:13 PM
I know this little bitch wasn't that big a deal but I was looking for a source of Nina (which I somehow missed when it was available) and it's good to know about David Nalle. It would be worthwhile mentioning him to Windows users in a PC Mag column...

Sirona, Divona and Onuava are not headline fonts, they're body fonts. I've set whole webpages in them, and that's what they're designed for. David Nalle designed them as webfonts.

HP's Dark Courier can be used for the same purpose as Courier, and is in fact more readable.

My suspicion of why they weren't included by Linux distributors is that Linux is competing with Windows, and the easiest way to get something to look like Windows is to use the same fonts.

David Nalle's fonts are headline fonts. I suspect this is why they haven't been included by Linux distributions.

What Linux needs is high quality fonts designed for readablility of large blocks of text. Designing such fonts is a lot harder than designing headline fonts.

Windows comes with beautiful body fonts, such as Times New Roman, Arial (aka Helvetica) and Courier.

It is my understanding that the current Linux approach is to recommend copying fonts from an installed version of Windows on your hard disk. This likely violates the licence, but is not easily addressed by Microsoft.

SSE,

Ah, I see.

Linux should start including the Scriptorium webfonts. David Nalle is good people and a very talented type designer. Plus those three fonts are offered for free, in the spirit of the web and Linux.

Explanation from MS is given here:

http://typographi.ca/2002_08_13.php#000428

A Microsoft spokesperson kindly answered our questions...


Why did you take the fonts down?

“Most users who wanted the fonts have downloaded them already. They ship with recent operating systems – Windows and Mac OS (via IE). In addition, the downloads were being abused – repackaged, modified and shipped with commercial products in violation of the end-user license agreement.”

Where can I get these fonts now?

“The fonts ship with Windows XP and recent versions of Mac OS. Earlier versions of Windows (Windows 98 thru Windows 2000) included most of them (but not Trebuchet MS, Andale Mono or Georgia).”

There's more here:

http://www.kottke.org/02/08/020813the_case_of_.html

If you want good web fonts, there's also Sirona, Divona and Onuava from the Scriptorium.

http://www.ragnarokpress.com/scriptorium/webfonts.html

Their link was just down, but you can also get the fonts here:

http://www.mouserfonts.com/s003.htm

and look under "Sirona"

Good, well designed fonts with a bit more character to them for web design.

Microsoft pulled the fonts because they were being used for Linux. Linux comes with terrible fonts - so to get good fonts people were using Microsoft's core fonts.

Linux distributions couldn't just include the fonts - that would be an obvious copyright violation - so they included a program which automatically downloaded the fonts from Microsoft's web page.

The sourceforge copy is arguably allowed under Microsoft's distribution license. A court case would be required to decide. Microsoft hasn't taken any legal action yet.

What most people don't realize is that font design is an art. To design a readable font, as opposed to one for headlines, takes the best part of a year for a talented font designer. This will cost you 6 figures.

Likely Microsoft was paying licensing on the fonts and decided to get cheap. It's not like they're going to go away, since they'll be floating around the net forever.

One particularly good corporate freebie that's still up is Dark Courier from HP:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...8US%29&locale=en_US

Maybe not as much for web design, but great for manuscripts.

Well, wasn't that uninformative.

It wasn't even a good whinge.

  Not to worry, they are still up on SourceForge --

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34153

What's Microsoft trying to prove by pulling its fonts?