Re: Vera fonts

[<Jim Gettys hp com>]

> Sender: fonts-admin gnome org
> From: Bob Tennent <rdt cs queensu ca>
> Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 16:04:22 -0400
> To: fonts gnome org
> Subject: Vera fonts
> -----
> Nice job guys!  Here are a few questions and comments.
> 
>  + Will italic and bold italic versions of the serif face be coming
>    eventually? Artificial obliqueing of a serif face just isn't good
>    enough. Now that we have anti-aliasing finally, a decent italic font
>    would be really nice.
> 

No current plans by anyone I've heard from...  Jim will be putting together
a document to aid people wanting to contribute to the Vera family when
he's back from vacation.

>  + The resale restriction is silly. Why shouldn't Bitstream try to make
>    money selling these fonts? There are people who still don't "get it"
>    and think that if you don't pay for it, it can't be any good. So
>    sell the fonts to them! Sun does the same with StarOffice vis-a-vis
>    OpenOffice.org, and there are still a lot of people who want Netscape
>    rather than Mozilla.
> 

Bitstream could certainly sell them; however, they did not feel
that they wanted to do so, and they also did not want to see their
competitors selling them directly (it is hard to justify to stockholders
that they not make money off a set of fonts, and that their competitors
are making money off of them).  This has actually been a problem
(despite copyrights) in the past for Bitstream, as I understand it,
and they wanted some way to prevent other font sellers
profiting directly off their largess.

I don't think that Openoffice/staroffice is comparable in any case:
Sun is selling some additional content (clipart, fonts, data base stuff),
as well as doing support for their add-on, which makes perfect sense to
me.

>  + Any chance of getting real old-style figures in the serif face?
> 

I'm not sure what you mean.
                   - Jim


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