2 ms·

MS is a trillion dollar company. It has the means to do whatever it wants to do.

• WorldMaker 7y ago
  The 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 ago
    10M would make Monotype pee itself. MS does not require board approval for deals $100M or less.