The easy way to understand web-font licensing: use open-source fonts
Posted by Tom Moertel Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:59:00 GMT
It blows my mind that Adobe just posted 1000 words on its typography blog to help designers approach the complexities of web-font licensing. If it’s that hard to understand what you need to understand to use web fonts “legally,” why even bother? Why risk getting it wrong and being audited or worse?
Isn’t it safer and easier to forget the big foundries and their complicated licensing schemes and just use open-source fonts? There are plenty of choices these days:
- Open font library
- Google Type API fonts
- Font Squirrel (cost-free but not all open source)
When there are more than enough high-quality open-source fonts to meet almost every practical need, why suffer licensing hassles and the risks of non-compliance? Just pick an open font and get back to life.
Amen.
There are more free fonts, too, e.g. Linux Libertine and Red Hat’s Liberation series spring to mind.