I just wanted to add that it's quite usable, even if for now it's just for me and some friends.



g.

The outlines of Verdana you clearly can't re-use. But the bitmaps are a more confusing issue. If you just took the Verdana bitmaps and made them all fit a fixed-sized box, I think it's not ethical to redistribute (you could always use it yourself), even though it might very well be legal.

On the other hand, there are few ways to make bitmaps at that size, and if you pretend you made them yourself nobody can complain (but you'd need to hide the association). It's better to get permission, but considering it's MS you're extremely unlikely to get it...

I think your only real recourse is to start from scratch and make a mono bitmap font, perhaps visually compatible with Verdana. The bonus with this approach is that you can fine-tune the letterforms to better fit the mono space. The outlines you'd have to make yourself (or re-use a public source). But I see no problem with "Veranda" - it's actually nice, especially when you consider that it's a wide and flat design. :-)

hhp

While I mostly agree with you, I've just found out FFF Star (http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontsforflash/fff-star/) by Fonts For Flash (http://www.fontsforflash.com/), which is a 8px bitmap font based (imho) on Verdana.

I don't follow the if-they-steal-I-can-steal-too philosophy, and I know nothing about them, but they're selling FFF Star by the light of the day, via MyFonts, so maybe, and I say maybe, a thing like this is perfectly legal.

If so, and I still doubt it, I could distribute my little font to the six persons who asked me, and sell it to the one who was willing to pay for it...

g.