3 ms·
MS can't really win against its own Consolas. If you haven't tried Consolas, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. Would be cool if MS opensourced that, if t
by m0zg 7y ago
MS can't really win against its own Consolas. If you haven't tried Consolas, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. Would be cool if MS opensourced that, if they can.
- WorldMaker 7y agoUnfortunately, it's unlikely that Microsoft has the means to open source Consolas as it (along with most of the rest of the Office C-Family fonts) was a commission from / commercial partnership with Monotype (company/foundry; albeit I think it was Ascender at the time but M&A since then it's definitely Monotype that owns the commercial rights today). Commercial licensing info: http://catalog.monotype.com/family/microsoft-corporation/consolas http://catalog.monotype.com/family/microsoft-corporation/con...
- m0zg 7y agoMS is a trillion dollar company. It has the means to do whatever it wants to do.
- WorldMaker 7y agoThe keyword I used was "unlikely". The point being that it would be a coordinated effort between Microsoft and some other company (Monotype), increasing the unlikelihood, because it would require joint effort. Regardless of Microsoft's market cap, it would still have to deal with the lawyers and royalty concerns of its partner, it couldn't just unilaterally decide to open source it without negotiations. Given the nature of font design, Microsoft may not even have access the "source" for Consolas today, and maybe/probably only licenses the final TTFs from Monotype. (Plus, it's an old enough font that whatever "source" there may exist would only be glyphs in various proprietary formats and build tools/chains that would require conversion to tools more appropriate to open source.) Yes, Microsoft has the resources to do all of that, given enough time and it becoming enough of a priority, but the likelihood of that becoming a priority one would directly assume is related to how much effort that would take. It would likely take a lot of effort.
- m0zg 7y ago10M would make Monotype pee itself. MS does not require board approval for deals $100M or less.
- Stratoscope 7y agoConsolas has been my favorite monospaced font for years. I prefer proportional fonts for reading and writing code, and my current favorite is another Microsoft font, Trebuchet MS. But when I need a monospaced font, like in a terminal, Consolas is it.
- saagarjha 7y ago> But when I need a proportional font, like in a terminal, Consolas is it. You mean monospaced font? I’m curious why you use proportional fonts when writing code but not in your terminal.
- Stratoscope 7y agoWhoops, sorry for the very confusing typo, and thanks for noting it! Corrected now. That's what I get for commenting on HN when I should have already called it a night... :-) With the typo corrected, yes I do prefer proportional fonts (and as mentioned especially Trebuchet MS), and all the editors I use support them. I just find them much more readable to my eyes than monospaced. Except in a terminal where apps assume monospaced font - so that's where Consolas shines.
- ggregoire 7y agoAnd Consolas with ligatures: https://github.com/somq/consolas-ligaturized https://github.com/somq/consolas-ligaturized
- m0zg 7y agoNo license: can't use.
- ddispaltro 7y agoI completely agree, the only monospaced font I've used for the last 5+ years. I am however, giving this one a full go.
- thefz 7y agoThe font I always fall back to in Visual Studio after trying others. It's so clear.