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Liberation Fonts Increase Interoperability For Linux Users 99

Posted by timothy from the yes-yes-gnu-slash-linux dept.
hweimer writes "Most problems when opening Word documents under GNU/Linux are due to missing fonts. Therefore, Red Hat published a set of fonts metric-compatible with the Windows core fonts last year. However, there were some concerns regarding the licensing that prevented many other distros to ship them. We finally managed to settle these problems, leading to better document interoperability for all GNU/Linux users."
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Liberation Fonts Increase Interoperability For Linux Users More

Liberation Fonts Increase Interoperability For Linux Users

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  • Used to be known as... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rishistar ( 662278 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @04:37PM (#23941319) Homepage
    ..French fonts!

  • I fixed it for you (Score:5, Funny)

    by seanonymous ( 964897 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @04:38PM (#23941331)
    Most problems with opening Word documents are that they were created with Word.

    • You think you're funny (Score:5, Insightful)

      by argent ( 18001 ) <peter&slashdot,2006,taronga,com> on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @05:04PM (#23941695) Homepage Journal

      Well you are, OK, that was funny.

      But it's also serious.

      GOD DAMN the Word document structure sucks like something that sucks a lot.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 )

      From what I've heard you can sometimes get better results opening Word documents with OpenOffice.

      Word can only be explained as a plot to sap the productivity of computer users, towards what end I cannot say.

      • Re:I fixed it for you (Score:5, Insightful)

        by plover ( 150551 ) * on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @05:53PM (#23942359) Homepage Journal
        No, Word is a cruel developer-led plot to sap the output of the business analysts. By keeping their conflicting requirements tangled up in Word, and by shifting their focus to fonts and colors, it keeps them from ever actually finishing them and so inflicting them upon the hapless developers.

        By one estimation*, developers would have almost twice as many annoying requirements if business analysts were to switch to open-source word-smithing tools.

        *In his defense, the estimator was both drunk and bitter at the set of requirements he had just been handed.

        • Re:I fixed it for you (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @06:07PM (#23942499) Homepage Journal

          Well, the developers need better targetting because millions of people and billions of man-hours are wasted by Word. I bet Word causes more pain and wasted time than the U.S. tax code.

          • Is Word worse than Excel? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @07:38PM (#23943529) Homepage Journal

            Does Word have a greater Gross National Productivity Cost than Excel? It seems like they are about the same, except Excel might be worse since it is more likely to cause collateral damage (bad business decisions because the numbers were crunched wrong).

            But there is software that has an even higher GNPC than either of these two: PowerPoint.

            MS Office: the corporate equivalent of multiple sclerosis. Gets your business into the wheelchair races real quick.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by jonadab ( 583620 )
              > Does Word have a greater Gross National Productivity Cost than Excel? It seems like they are
              > about the same, except Excel might be worse since it is more likely to cause collateral damage
              > (bad business decisions because the numbers were crunched wrong).

              You're forgetting that about five times as many people *use* (err, attempt to use) Word, as compared to Excel.

              > But there is software that has an even higher GNPC than either of these two: PowerPoint.

              Agreed. PowerPoint may be the most gratuit

      • Re:I fixed it for you (Score:5, Informative)

        by deniable ( 76198 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @10:48PM (#23944917)

        We had Word documents get so screwed up that Word wouldn't open them. The best fix was to open them in OpenOffice and re-save them. It messed up the formatting, but it was better than losing a days work. I keep it around as a repair tool even in an all MS shop.

        If you think Word is evil, stay away from Publisher.

        • I have to re-create mumbo-jumbo-comicsans-ubber-Ididitboss-posters for my clients you insensitive clod! Stay away from graphic design!!

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by awrowe ( 1110817 )
          My stepson spent the first ten years of his school life thinking publisher was the application for creating letters. Damn those blurry lines.

  • Linux Liberation Font? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kell Bengal ( 711123 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @04:40PM (#23941367)
    Sounds like a open-source typography terrorist organisation.

  • Do I need/want these? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @04:55PM (#23941585) Journal
    If I already have corefonts installed, do I need or want these?

    • Re:Do I need/want these? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pshuke ( 845050 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @05:14PM (#23941793)
      Probably not. The appeal with these fonts, as I understand it, is that they can be distributed along with the rest of the operating system. Corefonts have some slight copyright issues. From the licence [sourceforge.net]:


      Reproduction and Distribution. You may reproduce and distribute an unlimited number of copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT; provided that each copy shall be a true and complete copy, including all copyright and trademark notices, and shall be accompanied by a copy of this EULA. Copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT may not be distributed for profit either on a standalone basis or included as part of your own product.

      Note in particular the "Copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT may not be distributed for profit either on a standalone basis or included as part of your own product." part.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Jherek Carnelian ( 831679 )

        FWIW, the copy of those fonts that HP distributed with some versions of HPUX 11.11 did not have that same EULA.

        The version of that paragraph included in the README file of /usr/lib/X11/fonts/ms.st/typefaces/README says:

        Reproduction and Distribution. You may reproduce and distribute
        an unlimited number of copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT; provided
        that each copy shall be a true and complete copy, including all
        copyright and trademark notices, and shall be accompanied by a
        copy of this EULA. Copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT may be
        distributed as a standalone product or included with your own
        product. Copies of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT may not be sold or
        distributed for any kind of fee.

        The difference being that the version of this EULA says you can include them "with your own product" which appears to mean you can charge a fee for your product and include the fonts "for free." It sure seems like that's what HP actually did given that they came with the copy of HPUX that

      • Thats what keeps them free. (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Everyone in GNULand will just use their package manager and install them. Free. Then they can add on their word processor of choice and use them as they see fit. By not allowing them into for profit projects they prevent the misappropriation of the fonts and it is a non-issue when the Free distros can just throw it on their repositories.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      corefonts are on dodgy legal ground since microsoft decided they weren't really interested in the improving the internet experience for all people, and their removal of them. If these new fonts are good enough, corefonts will be removed from the distros over time.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by cbart387 ( 1192883 )

      I find the liberation fonts more visually appealing. Fedora has a lush look to it without any tweaking, in my opinion ... and part of that is the font choice. If you're curious what it looks like, just do a search for Fedora screenshots.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by alexgieg ( 948359 )

      If I already have corefonts installed, do I need or want these?

      I've tried the Liberation fonts some months ago, but went back to mscorefonts.

      My reason was that, while Liberation seem to look as "good" as MS' ones with font blurring enabled (that subpixel-something I hate, also the reason I put "good" between quotes), once you disable the blurring they become a set of disconnected lines and dots that only slightly resemble the alphabet. MS fonts, on the other hand, look beautifully, sharp and crisp, on blurless mode. Now, I don't know whether Liberation has improved it

      • If, on the other hand, you do like blurred fonts, then they're a good replacement, I guess.

        Subpixel rendering doesn't "blur" the fonts, it does the opposite. It uses the vertical (or sometimes horizontal) divisions between the red, green and blue elements of each pixel on a TFT to render the fonts at a 3x higher resolution (on one axis).

        Not still using a CRT are you? ;)

        • Subpixel rendering doesn't "blur" the fonts, it does the opposite.

          Right - blurring is anti-aliasing's job.

        • Subpixel rendering doesn't "blur" the fonts, it does the opposite. It uses the vertical (or sometimes horizontal) divisions between the red, green and blue elements of each pixel on a TFT to render the fonts at a 3x higher resolution (on one axis).

          I don't know about you, but having red, green and blue dots scattered around black characters feels blurred to me, in the specific sense of something out of focus. Those dots would be alright if they were black, but a "rainbow glow" intermixed with my text isn't s

    • As another poster mentioned, but I'll try to make a little clearer, whether you want Liberation or not depends on whether you use font anti-aliasing (smoothing). In my experience, Liberation interacts with FreeType (the font rendering engine used by Linux) MUCH better than Microsoft fonts do when it comes to FreeType's anti-aliasing, producing much smoother and more consistent lines. If you prefer your fonts without anti-aliasing, Microsoft's fonts seem much better designed for that.

  • This is good, but (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dfaulken ( 1312005 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @04:58PM (#23941617)

    What is really needed to help Linux stand out is a set of F/LOSS-licensed fonts that are of even better quality than the default MS stuff--I mean it's essential to be able to show Times New Roman correctly, but what would make Linux (and other free operating systems) stand out is a selection of superb fonts.

    Look to Firefox for an example--people didn't choose it (solely) because it was free; they chose it because it works better (for them). I suspect at least some users could be swayed by better default fonts.

    • I agree we need more fonts that are great yeah there area few that are good but one are truly great.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by larry bagina ( 561269 )
      Computer Modern. It's been better than the default MS stuff for 25 years or so.

      • Agreed, but using it from anything but LaTeX (or Lyx, or what-have-you, is quite difficult (at least in my experience--if it were easy-to-use in OOo or whatever word processor is default in a distribution, then, yes, it would be a plus.

      • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

        by cerberusss ( 660701 )
        Although using the MS stuff (Courier New and Times or Arial) together in a document looks pretty bad, the fonts themselves look very nice and modern. I think Computer Modern looks... oldfashioned.

    • Re:This is good, but (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RiotingPacifist ( 1228016 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @05:47PM (#23942277)

      Define better.
      Also font making doesnt lend it self to collaboration, basically you need 100 font making drones to try their hardest and then you tell 99 of them to go home. Companies don't mind doing this but if you didn't even get paid to make your font, youd be pretty pissed when it hours of your work are ditched in favor of something with a few more curly bits.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Apart from main designer there is need for a lot of folks who will adjust national characters.

        For example, Polish 'a ogonek [Ä...], e ogonek [Ä(TM)], and A ogonek [Ä]' has "ogonek" in wrong place. Any designer who knows Polish rules of font making can show you whats wrong...

        Of course font is legible, but it's not as pleasing as it could be...

    • Not a Bitstream Vera [wikipedia.org] fan? I think its monospace is superb.
    • How about DejaVu [sf.net]? I especially love the fixed width and use it for my terminal (urxvt), gvim, and the fixed width font in my browser (so I'm looking at it right now).

    • And similar enough to be a good substitute (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lonewolf666 ( 259450 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @06:25PM (#23942719)

      Like Arial is rather similar to Helvetica. Some people claim that Microsoft did this to avoid paying royalties, see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arial#Criticism.2FSimilar_fonts [wikipedia.org].
      Now this may be true or not, but after they almost copied Helvetica with Arial, turnabout's fair play.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You know, I kind of get why people say that Arial is similar to Helvetica, but at the end of the day, what they wanted was a highly usable Grotesque sans-serif web and screen font. They managed to do it. There are still a great deal of differences is what I'm saying. Arial is a bit less outspoken and characteristic as Helvetica (which is why it's usually classified as a so-called "neo-grotesque" font). I work as a type designer in the Netherlands, BTW, but don't let that stop you from modding me down...:)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

          You are probably correct but you do understand that 99.999% of the people can not tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica.
          Just like with wine all we care about is that they are easy to read and pleasing to the eye.
          That is the big problem I have found with these Freedom fonts. To me they are just not easy to read.

    • Re:This is good, but (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @08:01PM (#23943735)

      Gentium [sil.org]. It's released under the Open Font License, which I believe is "free" (by the FSF's definition).

      It was also designed with many extended Latin characters, allowing ethnic groups across the world to produce documents typeset in Gentium. (I mean, just look at all these diacritics! [sil.org])

      Say what you want about the organization that produced these (SIL International), but this is a good-looking, high-quality typeface, which fits your criteria perfectly.

    • Re:This is good, but (Score:4, Informative)

      by westlake ( 615356 ) on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @08:14PM (#23943823)
      What is really needed to help Linux stand out is a set of F/LOSS-licensed fonts that are of even better quality than the default MS stuff--I mean it's essential to be able to show Times New Roman correctly, but what would make Linux...stand out is a selection of superb fonts.

      Times New Roman was introduced in 1932. Baskerville in 1757.

      Type design at the highest level is an extraordinarily rare art and craft.

      Assuming you have that problem solved, how do limit their distribution of your new font set to the "free" operating systems - without having the pragmatists and the ideologues of F/OSS coming at you with pitchforks from every side?

      Linux has about a 0.68% share of the desktop. Sun with OpenOffice.org and the Mozilla Foundation with Firefox have set their sights a little higher.

    • I'm a Linux guy and I'm also a typography guy and I have to say that while I *want* these fonts to do well they don't quite cut it. Check out the uppercase 'P' compared to the lowercase 'p'.
    • Good font design is, perhaps surprisingly, incredibly difficult. It takes very talented and experienced individuals to make a usable general purpose font, and to be honest Microsoft has some of the best designed fonts out there (all claims of "borrowing" aside).

  • Front (Score:1, Redundant)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 )

    Q: Excuse me, is this the People's Liberation Font?
    A: Fuck off! We're the People's Font of Judea!

  • I don't know about you, but I'd like to have a system that's 100% Verdana-free.

    100% Arial-free, too. Yes, I can tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica, and Arial just looks garish.

    Besides, Luxi fonts are cooler than any of the Windows core fonts :P

    • You're forgetting the ultimate evil font... Comic Sans.
      • There's a "penultimate" evil font now, too. I can never remember the name of it, but it's getting used as gratuitously now as "MS Comic Sans" was half a decade ago. What IS the name of that elongated crinkly-edged font that everybody insists on using now?...

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by kni52 ( 598886 )
          You're thinking of Papyrus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_font [wikipedia.org] It's so much more obtrusive in recent use. At least you can occasionally forget that you're looking at Comic Sans when you're forced to read it.

          The problem is that the people using these typefaces don't understand that decorative fonts should be used rarely, if at all. They think that if they use these in their text it, or they will come across as "fun" or "classy." Of course that's about as effective as a Camaro and a mullet are at

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jfengel ( 409917 )

        It's the ultimate evil font only because they retired Zapf Chancery's jersey number. That was one evil, evil overused font.

      • The problem is, Comic Sans is the only font I know of that has a hand-written style 'a'. ie, pretty much a c with a stick.

  • Why did they include a mono family? What's wrong with IBM Courier, which has been included with every distribution of X11 since X11R5?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 )

      What's wrong with IBM Courier, which has been included with every distribution of X11 since X11R5?

      The problem is that LCD monitors happened. Personally, I had been stuffing LucidaTypwriter (specifically, lutRS14) into every text editor in every OS I used for over 15 years. However, I finally gave up on it a couple of years ago because LCDs accentuate the jagginess of bitmap fonts. They overcome the problem (and surpass CRTs) with subpixel rendering, but that only works with scalable fonts.

      So I recompiled my distro's FreeType package with the "good stuff" enabled and set my text editors to Bitstream

  • Most distributions adopted the Liberation fonts more than a year ago. At least Fedora and Mandriva [mandriva.com] did.

    This really shouldn't be news, as the Debian license-police usually delay introduction of anything new with unnecessary (see links in article) license haggling.

    As far as I can see, the exception on the liberation fonts makes the "software" more free, whereas the Tex csplain additional restriction makes the software less free (one of the freedoms is lost).

    The GPL incompatibility is also moot, since no other

  • Wow, those are some ugly fonts.

    Aren't there free high-quality versions of Helvetica, Times and Courier available already?

    The Liberation fonts might make it possible to read things, but they're certainly not going to make it possible to make good looking documents or web pages. Unless, of course, the Windows versions are just extra ugly to punish me for having to use XP at work...

  • How is this better than any of the other similar fonts out there such as Linux Libertine [sourceforge.net] or Bitstream Vera [wikipedia.org]?

    Both of thses font groups are similar, serve the same purpose and have been around much longer.

    I've used all three and see very little difference.

    What Linux really needs are some good fonts that don't mimic the standard Windows fonts. There are lots of very nice fonts that come with Microsoft Office, few of which have decent equivalents in Linux (excluding proprietary fonts you can buy from a number o

    • Maybe I missed something, but the Libertine seems to only be a serif font. Sans serif is very important. Bitstream Vera is great, but I think you're missing the main point of this which is that Liberation is more metrically compatible with Windows fonts (Bitstream Vera isn't even close). That means that they work as a much better drop-in replacement without everything in a document having to be resized and repositioned because of different sized fonts.

  • This thread on Debian-Legal [mail-archive.com] seems to suggest that Debian does not think the licensing issue has been resolved.

    And this thread on Debian-Legal [mail-archive.com] which the Liberation Fonts page itself links to, also has Francesco Poli describing very clearly that he thinks Debian doesn't have the right to redistribute the fonts with the current license.

    So.. where are the messages showing the Debian people actually accepting the licensing terms and deciding to add the font package to Debian?

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