On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Erwin Dokter erwin@darcoury.nl wrote:
This is completly a non-issue. CSS Font stacks merely *refer* to a font already installed (and paid for) on a reader's computer. There are no legal issues arising form this whatsoever.
You missed the point. The issue is ideological, not legal.
When it comes to selecting fonts, it is natural in web design to first refer to the most commonly installed fonts available. If you were to specify only free fonts, they would have no effect on the 99% of our reader's computers, because they don't have those font installed to begin with. In short, preferring free fonts in a font stack is utterly pointless.
Surely it's closer to 98%.[1] ;(
Actually, I've seen plenty of sites that specify fonts with lesser expected penetration first, usually fonts distributed with Mac OSes but not Windows.
The drawback to specifying the non-free font first is that those of us who have both still get the non-free font.
[1]: Non-Android Linux has a bit over 2%, according to http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm