Re: Vera -> DejaVu fonts?

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] 
says...
> 
> Should we import the DejaVu fonts as default TrueType fonts for
> xenocara, i.e., as replacement for the Vera fonts?
> 
> The DejaVu fonts are an extension of Bitstream Vera and are under
> the same license.  The DejaVu fonts cover a greater range of
> characters.  This helps a lot with Firefox for scientific texts,
> IPA, and Greek.  Our embryonic port of Chromium profits even more,
> (e.g., Cyrillic works) since Chromium seems less apt at cobbling
> together glyphs from different (non-TrueType?) fonts.
> 
> Are there any downsides to importing DejaVu?

Since:
a) the DejaVu fonts are essentially a superset of the Vera fonts,

b) the DejaVu license is essentially a superset of the Vera license 
while not imposing any NEW licensing restrictions that might go against 
the grain of the BSD license philosophy

c) the DejaVu fonts are intended specifically to be used instead of the 
Vera fonts: quoting from the main page:
   "Its purpose is to provide a wider range of characters while
    maintaining the original look and feel through the process of
    collaborative development (see authors), under a Free license."

Then I would imagine that technical reasons would be the next item to 
examine.  

I've used the DejaVu font sets as my default fonts under Windows, MacOS, 
Solaris, various Linux and various BSD just so I could keep a consistent 
stylistic theme across the various systems I own, and I started doing 
that at least three years ago  (possibly more... I was using the Vera 
fonts first, not sure when I switched) and I've never had any of the 
DejaVu fonts crash a TTF renderer yet.

I get reasonably decent results regardless of which renderer I use: 
Windows GDI, Mac OS X (any of them - who knows which!), Xft, FT1, FT2, 
with and without GASP support, bytecode support, and autohinter support.

Then esthetic:

While they aren't perfect, and do not quite have the same quality that 
results from significant financial transactions in the cases of 
Microsoft and Apple for their respective core fonts, DejaVu comes 
surprisingly close and is adequate for almost all professional 
typography uses.

And, of course, they derive directly from professionally-done fonts from 
B&H in the first place, so it's unlikely that community additions will 
significantly degrade the look of the font (the project currently has a 
policy of NOT replacing any original characters from Vera).

Also, the DejaVu project seems to be a bit livelier than the Gnome 
Fonts' Vera project, not that either one is in any danger of being 
abandoned right now.

So I'd say yes, please, especially if you import the entire set, which 
includes several more faces than the Vera set now.

-Adam Thompson
 <[email protected]>