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Title: Liberation fonts Date: 2007-05-14 15:12 Author: nicolas Category: News Tags: Libre Fonts Slug: liberation-fonts Status: published A news found on [Linuxhelp](http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/): > Visit any random website and chances are the website expects your > machine to have a set of fonts which have become the de-facto standard > on the Internet. The fonts being Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New > and so on. While it may not be illegal to install these fonts on a > Linux machine, they are propritery and are owned by Microsoft. And > Microsoft does not licence third parties to redistribute these fonts - > a reason why you don't find these commonly used popular fonts > installed in Linux by default. > > This is going to change once and for all. <!--more--> > Red Hat in association with Ascender Corp has developed a set of fonts > which are the metric equivalent of the most popular Microsoft fonts, > and they have released it under the GPL+exception license. Read [the full article](http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/05/metric-equivalent-of-microsoft-fonts.html) A few more details from the Redhat press release: > To address this issue and to take a key step toward liberating > desktops, Red Hat contracted with Ascender Corp., one of the leading > commercial developers of fonts, to develop a set of fonts that are > metrically equivalent to the key Microsoft fonts. Under the terms of > that development agreement, Ascender retains rights in the fonts and > can provide them under a traditional proprietary license to those who > require such a license, e.g. printers that have fonts embedded in > their firmware, but Red Hat receives a license that permits us to > sublicense the fonts at no cost under the GPL+font exception. The > fonts are being developed in two stages. The first release is a set of > fully usable fonts, but they will lack the fully hinting capability > (hinting adjusts font pixelization so that the fonts render with high > quality at large and small sizes) provided by TrueType/FreeType > technology. That release is now ready. The second release will provide > full hinting of the fonts, and that release will be available by the > end of the calendar year. Read [the details of the press release](http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/). And last but not least, [download the first version of the fonts from here](https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/)
