The Ubuntu font and a fresh look at open font licensing

Yeah, that got accidentally linked together from a previously longer discussion of the other commissioned-from-commercial-foundry fonts. The point, however, remains exactly the same: the older fonts were designed, released, then official development on them just stopped. Vera included.

That is the part that makes Ubuntu's -- and DM's -- ongoing development plan different; they are continuing to add scripts and community-developed glyphs.

Moving forward, the decision to continue to develop the UFF is what distinguishes it from Vera -- as well as Droid, Liberation, and the others in that category, which used the deliver-once-then-forget model. For all the general talk about the ills of proprietary software houses dumping code "over the wall" it's puzzling why the FLOSS community took it for granted that it should accept fonts in the same manner.

Nate