Here is my second attempt to make "one font to rule them all".  In 
2007, I attempted to make a screen-readable version of the Bitstream
Charter font.  This project was, looking back, unsuccessful.  Bitstream
Charter is a font for laser printers; it is not a screen font.  In
particular, making it legible below "14" in size is nay-to-impossible.

I finally threw in the towel; my mini-linux system that needs a good
screen font uses a bitmap conversion of "Verdana" I call "Vorpal".
While this is legal in the USA, the legal status in some other countries
is still up in the air.

Here, instead of trying to make a font optimized for 300dpi printers
screen readable, I'm making a mostly-libre font designed for the screen
one that looks good using old-school non-anti-aliased font rendering
technology.  The goal is to have a font that looks good on the screen,
when printed, and, ideally, can be used as both a monospaced and a
porportional font.

I am basing this font off of DejaVu Serif, which in turn is derived
from Bitstream Vera Serif.  The license is not as good as the OFL;
in particular, I have some concerns about embedding a font with this
license in PDF files.  The license states "The above copyright and
trademark notices and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies of one or more of the Font Software typefaces."  Since the
preposition "in" instead of "with" is used here, there is some ambiguity
about whether, when making a PDF file embedding this font, one merely has
to include the license in the PDF file (this is fairly easily done), or 
whether the license has to be in the part of the PDF file containing 
the font information (which is more difficult to do).

Right now, I have taken the font, and had Fontforge make bitmap renderings
of the font at various small sizes.  I am now, by hand, making those
low-resolution renderings as readable as I can at various resolutions.
Since Bitstream Vera is a screen font, this is easier to do than it was
with Bitstream Charter.

I am doing this with Vera Serif instead of Vera Sans because:

1) Vera Serif is about as readible on the screen as Vera Sans.

2) Vera Serif is easier to read when printed out.

Here are my current plans:

1) Make bitmap renderings of Serif Roman at 8,9,10,11,12,14,16 pixel
   sizes.  (Current work)

2) From the Verily project, make a monospace version of Vera Serif 
   that is both a screen and a printing project.  This will only be
   rendered at 12 pixel size on the screen (and will replace misc fixed
   when done)

3) Make an oblique version of Vera Serif that only uses the "a" and "f"
   glyphs from "DejaVu Serif Italic"; I feel the quality of "DejaVu Serif
   Italic" doesn't have the same quality as "Vera Serif"; so my oblique
   version will just mostly be a slanted version of V.S.

3) Make bitmap renderings of Serif Italic at 10,11,12,14,16 pixel
   sizes.  

4) Make bitmap renderings of Serif Bold at 10,11,12,14,16 pixel sizes.

This font will only exist in Roman, Bold, and Italic forms, and only in
Roman form at smaller screen resolutions.

---

This project is part of my project to update MOAM-CD.  I plan on holding
on to MOAM-CD 20080217 for a while; it is "good enough" for the amount of
time I actually need to use MOAM-CD these days (almost never; I lug my 
laptop around with me, which seems to be helping develop my muscles,
making me more attractive with the latinas).  The main change I did was
to make as much room for music as possible, since the most common use
for MOAM-CD is to put it in my roomate's stereo and listen to music I 
relax to.

I also wanted to have it be something that I don't need to update every 
month or two the way I had to when it included Firefox (Firefox is only
secure if you use the latest version; they constantly find security 
problems in the code).  So, instead of Firefox, MOAM CD 20080217 includes
two mini-browsers with a solid security history: 

1) Dillo with the "I18N" patches that add tabs, frames, SSL support that
works, cookies that work, and other changes that make Dillo actually
marginally usable on today's web.

2) The graphical version of Links.

Between these two browsers, I can use, to some degree, most sites I visit.
The only web site neither browser is usable with is MySpace, whose code
monkeys can't code their way out of a paper bag.  Dillo and Links work
fine with Gmail (In "basic HTML" mode), PhpBB web boards, and with
skimming Slashdot and Digg.  Links can even log me in to ChristianForums.com
(A place that really should be called ChristianFlaming.com, but that's 
another story).  

That said, the 20080217 snap has some issues:

1) RXVT seg faults and dies when trying to use aspell in terminal mode; the
   workaround is "aspell -a < file | grep '^&'"

2) RXVT also has issues with not correctly erasing text when I use Nano to
   edit the text.  The workaround is "control-L" to redraw the terminal
   screen.

3) Dillo caches "this web page can not be reached"; Sometimes I try to
   reach a web page and the web page doesn't respond, forcing me to hit 
   "stop" and to reload the page.  Alas, while this works in Firefox, in 
   Dillo, it caches the "the web page never responded", forcing me to 
   restart Dillo to get to the page in question.

4) The "red_vwbug.jpg" picture is blurry and too red.  Also, the image has
   a 1-pixel-wide white bar on the left.  I have already made a corrected
   jpeg image that is about the same size, ready to put in the next
   (2009) version of the MOAM CD.

5) It would be nice to have the card images in the "cards" folder have
   sensible names ("as.png" being the Ace of Spades; "td.png" being the
   Ten of Diamonds; "4h.png" being the Four of Hearts; etc.)

