What are good sources for Open-Source fonts?
Note that by "Open-Source" I don't mean only free, but truly "open, free to modify and published under an Open Source license" fonts. These are still very rare.
I know of two:
Any others?
8 Answers
Google font directory https://www.google.com/fonts
The fonts are free (as in beer and as in speech). Most of them are using the SIL Open Font License, but not all of them.
-
1I don't know if the fonts themselves are open source or just free. I don't think the outlines have been released.dkuntz2– dkuntz22011-01-12 06:28:22 +00:00Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 6:28
-
@DKuntz: From what I can see, they are all licensed under either the SIL license, which is fully free or the Apache license. I'm not really up on where the free beer/speech line is drawn by font designers.Charles Stewart– Charles Stewart2011-01-17 19:54:17 +00:00Commented Jan 17, 2011 at 19:54
-
1To clarify (as one of the designers of the project): the part critical to copyright law are not the shapes of the letters, but the software representation of outlines, kerning, OT features etc. And that's all libre -- you can get the source files for all fonts on the GFD from their Google Code/Mercurial repository.sk29910– sk299102011-08-06 04:43:46 +00:00Commented Aug 6, 2011 at 4:43
Fonts included with Linux distros are usually Open Source. This would include these major families:
The Wikipedia page Free software Unicode typefaces list many others. Additionally, another well-known Open Source font is the Ubuntu font, now used as the default sans font in the 10.10 release of the operating system as well as all branding.
Font Squirrel also has a large catalogue of Open Source fonts, though it mostly curates free fonts and there's no way to filter by licensing.
The Liberation fonts are GPL-licensed and designed to be compatible with the most common fonts shipped in Windows: https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/
I don't have any additional aggregate sources beyond what has already been mentioned, but you might want to check out GUST's TeX Gyre fonts: http://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/tex-gyre/
Adobe just released Source Sans. It has a lot of promise. And you'll note that it's hosted on Sourceforge, where by searching for font or typeface I found a handful of other projects.
In addition to Google Fonts, there is also Font Squirrel.
If you are a developer or designing a web application, take a look at NPM typeface packages. This allow you to download and self-host fonts instead of using a CDN like Google Fonts.
There's the SIL fonts themselves: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=FontDownloads
Recently, I've found the EB Garamond, which is close to completion: http://www.georgduffner.at/ebgaramond/index.html
The sortmill project has fonts under the MIT license: http://code.google.com/p/sortsmill/
I really like the Linux Libertine and Biolinum fonts: http://www.linuxlibertine.org/
The OpenFont Library wiki has a nice list.