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) (DONE, but needs a lot of work)

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. (DONE; based
   on DejaVu 1.15 with the "a" from a more recent DejaVu)

3) Make bitmap renderings of Serif Italic at 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, italic, and mono forms, and only 
in roman form at smaller screen resolutions.

