Liberation (font)
| font | Liberation |
| category | |
| Font family | Liberation |
| Font designer | Steve Matteson |
| Client | Red hat |
| Type foundry | Ascender Corp. |
| publication | May 9, 2007 |
| License | SIL Open Font License |
| example | |
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Liberation is a free font package developed on behalf of Red Hat by Ascender Corp. is being developed.
All characters have the same heights and widths as the corresponding characters in most of the popular Microsoft proprietary fonts Arial , Times New Roman, and Courier New . This means that the Liberation fonts can be used as a free replacement for the Microsoft fonts without changing anything in the layout of existing documents. Liberation is therefore only a font family in the broadest sense .
The first publication took place on May 9, 2007 under a modified GNU General Public License 2. From version 2.0, which was published on July 18, 2012, the Liberation fonts are under the SIL Open Font License .
Typeface
Liberation offers three font families : Sans, Serif, and Mono. The former has metric identity with Arial, the second with Times New Roman and the third with Courier New. Each font family is available in the four weights “normal”, “bold”, “italic” and “bold italic”. As the names suggest, Serif is an Antiqua , Sans is Grotesk, and Mono is a non-proportional font .
All Liberation fonts are in the TrueType format, i.e. as normal .ttf files. It is also available as an RPM package for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora users .
Metric identity
The metric identity with the Microsoft fonts does not mean that they are visually indistinguishable from them, only the height and width of each glyph match their Microsoft counterparts. This means that a text for which the Liberation Sans is used, for example, has exactly the same line and page breaks as if the Arial font had been used.
Differences between Liberation fonts and their Microsoft counterparts
Liberation Sans - Arial
In addition to the different line ends and the clearly different basic form of the small "a", it is particularly noticeable that the Liberation Sans has thinner overflows of curves into the trunk. Despite the same trunk width, a text set in Liberation Sans therefore has a slightly lighter gray value than Arial. In addition, the oval shapes of the Liberation Sans are slightly more "angular" than the rounder ones of the Arial.
Liberation Serif - Times New Roman
Liberation Serif and Times New Roman come from different families. The Liberation Serif is primarily characterized by straighter shapes, while in the Times New Roman the letters look significantly more "curved". This difference is clearly visible when reading the small "e" in particular.
Liberation Mono - Courier New
There are two completely different and therefore hardly comparable font families. The Liberation Mono was not designed with the intention of creating a counterpart to the thin-line "typewriter" Courier New. Rather, it is clearly derived from the sans cut, with the thickness of the narrow letters such as t or i being adapted to the “normal” wide glyphs in order to achieve a uniform typeface.
background
Although the Microsoft fonts are widely used, they are under a proprietary license, which means that they cannot be freely redistributed and used. For example, they may not be shipped with Linux-based systems. However, some popular Microsoft fonts can be installed as Microsoft Core Fonts on Linux systems. Since a different typeface requires at least a psychological familiarization process, Mark Webbink took up this problem in an article in Linux magazine at the beginning of 2007 and suggested that fonts be developed that have metric identity with Microsoft fonts, but that they are licensed under a free license put.
As a result, Red Hat hired commercial font developer Ascender Corp. with the development of a corresponding font family with the right to publish it under a free license. The first part of this development was completed in early May 2007 and Liberation Sans, Serif and Mono were released in a first version.
License and alternative
The Liberation fonts were published under an expanded version of GPL 2. The most important extension relates to documents that use this font. These documents do not have to be published under GPL 2, but can be published under any license. Further changes concern the removal of references to Red Hat and the trademark "Liberation" in the event of a modification and other provisions which are, however, irrelevant for normal users.
The use of Liberation fonts does not restrict the created documents in any way under license law.
The restrictive license terms have made the expansion and further development of version 1 of Liberation unattractive for potential buyers. As a result, since the introduction of the font under the GPL in 2007, hardly any extensions or changes have been made.
However, Google then acquired the rights to a new edition of the font from Ascender under the SIL Open Font License and has been distributing the font since 2013 under the name Chrome OS Fonts (" Croscore ") Arimo (sans), Cousine (monospace) and Tinos (serif ); The Apache 2.0 license is used there. Version 2.0 of the Liberation Fonts released in July 2012 is based on the Croscore Fonts. This version already includes a larger font coverage and is now under the SIL Open Font License.
References
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ascender: Liberation ™ -Fonts ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Red Hat: Liberation fonts , May 9, 2007
- ^ Fedora: Liberation fonts , accessed September 25, 2012
- ↑ Linux Magazine (English): On The Docket, March 2007; available via Google Cache ( Memento from May 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Red Hat News: Liberation fonts ( January 18, 2008 memento on WebCite ), May 9, 2007
- ↑ LICENSE AGREEMENT AND LIMITED PRODUCT WARRANTY LIBERATION FONT SOFTWARE (included in the Liberation package)
- ^ Nathan Willis: Liberation fonts and the tricky task of internationalization . In: LWN , June 19, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
- ↑ Google Fonts. In: Google Fonts. Retrieved August 17, 2016 .
- ↑ liberation fonts. In: fedorahosted.org. Retrieved August 17, 2016 .
