On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 4:58 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
So, what would be the downside of listing a font like Arimo for sans-serif and Libertine for serif first in the stack? While not affecting the reader experience for a significant number of users, it would still be a symbolic expression of a preference for freely licensed fonts, and a conscious choice of a beautiful font for readers that have installed it.
We basically tried the equivalent of this (placing relatively free fonts unknown on most platforms first) which Kaldari talked about previously. Ultimately that kind of declaration is useless for the vast majority of users and we got very specific negative feedback about it on the Talk page. These fonts are ignored by most systems when placed first or when placed later in the stack. Systems match the first font they recognize, so using something they don't recognize or putting it later is a largely just feel-good measure.
The whole Arimo/Arial conundrum is largely a matter of the fact that Windows users simply do not have a Helvetica-like font available on most versions which is better than Arial, warts and all. Again, the best solution is to deliver a webfont, which most people with good design sense are doing these days, and we can't yet.