Vera fonts status...

[<Jim Gettys hp com>]

We're sorry it has taken a bit longer than expected.  Feedback during beta
test was that people wanted less leading (less line separation).  Jim Lyles
was kind enough to redesign Vera's accents to make this possible, but this
was more work than originally planned for.

Then, we he got a version of Sans to us last week and we looked at it, we
wasted alot of time understanding various artifacts we were seeing.  It turns
out that font designers only hint fonts at integer sizes, and we (open source
font technology in general) have been rendering to arbitrary sizes even on screens, when the hinting is only adjusted for integer sizes.

There will be a new version of fontconfig
released imminently to provide this rounding function.  This should make
all hinted fonts work better, not just Vera.

Additionally, if you have installed XFree86 4.3 from source, you
likely installed a broken version of Freetype.  I recommend updating to
Freetype 2.1.4, which has been released.

In any case, I have in hand the Sans fonts this instant, and Jim Lyles when
heard from this morning thought he'd have the rest of the fonts done by the
end of today.  Keith and I will look them over for any big problems, and then
they will go out the door, as soon as any last minute glitches have been taken
care of.

Bottom line is: Very, Very Soon...  With a bit of luck, tomorrow, or at worst
the day after, unless there is some last second disaster....

                                 - Jim

--
Jim Gettys
Cambridge Research Laboratory
HP Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company
Jim Gettys hp com