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Posted by remywang 3 days ago

GNU Unifont(unifoundry.com)
342 points | 78 commentspage 2
kwk1 2 days ago|
Often I've seen font websites have a sort of "font hello world" preview image, and adding something like that here would be great. Apparently they're called "type specimens".
KronisLV 3 days ago||
Really like the idea of a font with extremely broad glyph support, sadly it looks really blurry on any custom size, like if I'd try to use this font in my IDE but would want to make it smaller so I can fit more text on the screen.

For that particular use case (tbh mostly aesthetics than glyph support), I also found the TTF version of Terminus to be pleasant: https://files.ax86.net/terminus-ttf/ though JetBrains Mono is good enough for me to not venture far away from defaults, albeit maybe Liberation Mono / Cousine was the peak of readability at somewhat small sizes out of any font out there for me.

Wonder if the Potrace approach of Terminus TTF version would work for Unifont. I imagine that Unifont is a pretty good default when doing shipping labels and for such utilitarian use cases.

kccqzy 3 days ago||
Please don’t use this unless the purpose is specifically to have a retro effect where you eschew modern fonts for aesthetic purposes. Because for any other purpose this just looks terrible, even for English text. Scripts requiring special shaping won’t be supported well. I don’t think it even supports different shapes for the same CJK character according to the language.
unleaded 2 days ago|
>unless the purpose is specifically to have a retro effect where you eschew modern fonts for aesthetic purposes

There are better fonts for this too e.g. Fusion Pixel Font for CJK: https://github.com/TakWolf/fusion-pixel-font

(yes the readme is in chinese, use google translate or something)

i think i saw a good pixel font that supported arabic too once but of course i cant find it now..

asgs 3 days ago||
it is so nice of them to explain the fact using the GNU Unifont in commercial non-free softwares clarifying when it is required to be published to public domain.
phoronixrly 3 days ago||
I like this better than the Google Sans Flex that made the front page today.
bborud 3 days ago||
Why does every GNU web page look like 1996? This actually matters. Even stripping the page down and removing any styling would make it look more trustworthy less like an abandoned project.

Perhaps a GNU style could be something we could help fund?

account42 13 hours ago||
I wish modern websites had this much information density.
_emacsomancer_ 2 days ago||
The Guix pages have styling: https://guix.gnu.org
jarbus 3 days ago||
Been a proud user for a while at jarbus.net :)
joeel84 3 days ago||
Amazing work!
outside1234 3 days ago||
[flagged]
positron26 3 days ago|
> A user has asked if GNU Unifont can be used with commercial (non-free) software.

One can be forgiven for thinking the author means to imply that all commercial software is non-free. It is a further disappointment that anyone has to ask.

Open source was right to get rid of the intentional and unintentionally anti-commercial motifs that only got in the way of paid open source development.

pwdisswordfishy 3 days ago||
Ironically, it's the FSF which discourages the use of "commercial" to mean "non-free":

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.en.html#Commer...

ekjhgkejhgk 3 days ago|||
Obviosuly discourages because they're not equivalent and creates confusion. Stallman himself was selling copies of Emacs while releasing it under a Free license.
positron26 3 days ago|||
Some may be confused into thinking this reply is a correction. I don't mean to appear to rebut.

We know that the FSF is aware of the problem. The trouble can only be if we expect more success from repeating the same tactics for the next forty years. I would blame no one for expecting the FSF to stay the course and to achieve similar effects. I would also not blame them for choosing a different path for themselves and recommending so to others.

F3nd0 3 days ago|||
> One can be forgiven for thinking the author means to imply that all commercial software is non-free.

Do they mean to imply this? It can also be read as a clarification about the mentioned software, not all commercial software in general. Could just be poor wording.

> Open source was right to get rid of the intentional and unintentionally anti-commercial motifs that only got in the way of paid open source development.

Open source did succeed in avoiding the problem present in English language, but in doing so, shifted focus away from freedom and onto different confusing motifs. A rare word like 'libre' arguably does an even better job while staying true to the original ideas behind the term 'free'.

positron26 3 days ago||
I do believe it was just poor wording.

I don't feel strong disagreement with the four freedoms, but the biggest reason I've gone fully _OSS and intentionally avoid "free/libre" is because I don't want to endorse the FSF tactics and because I want to encourage others to demand more radical innovations instead of forty more years of the same.

What I find most disappointing when I talk to the FSF is that if I bring up social finance and technically enabled social decisions that can make social finance a lot more effective, it is rather as if I have spoken some alien language. I believe the non-programmer needs a lever to choose the development model used by programs they rely on. To the FSF insiders, such thinking is so orthogonal as to generate no reaction. If I say "a billion users are important," they refute the necessity. They are content to be monastic, conveniently propped up by donations for saying nice things. I find such abandonment inexcusable, and I get fired up talking about it.

aidenn0 3 days ago||
There's also the implication that all non-commercial software is free. There's plenty of non-free (as in libre) software released by hobbyists.