Here is an article that tells the history of the Arial font — the Helvetica ripoff that Microsoft bundles with Windows and every product for the Mac. Oh this is so typical for Microsoft's "second class is good enough" attitude in everything they do...
Thanks for the link to the article on “Arial’s History” – but it seems like you and I read different articles.
The article does mention that Adobe originally made it difficult for other company’s to develop font. But you seem to think the article says that Microsoft “ripped-off” (stole?) the Arial font – nor can I find your article’s quote “this is so typical for Microsoft's ‘second class is good enough’ attitude in everything they do...”
Our long history of fonts was developed for the printed page NOT text displayed on monitors. While Arial was indeed a nice sans-serif font, Microsoft will soon replace Arial with Segoe.
I did not say that Microsoft ripped off the Helvetica font, I only said Microsoft went with a Helvetica rip-off (= Monotype's Arial) instead of licensing the original Helvetica font from Linotype like, e.g., Apple did. And the "second class is good-enough" quote is from me, not from the article.
Posted by: Guenter at December 29, 2005 10:19 AMIt seems that MS should pay me to be their spokesperson ;-)
Anyway, I'd suggest to rephrase the "second class is good enough" into "good enough is good enough" and it has been seen in more areas than fonts, with more companies than Microsoft and in more industries than computing - PC, Ethernet and Ford cars come in mind. It's just the nature of the world. Most people love beautiful and perfect things but the reality of the world and/or good-enoughness cause the widespread use of the less-than-perfect ones. Thats why at my local car dealer I can walk in and get a Ford right now but for a Porsche 911 I'll have to wait a while and reach deeper into my pocket. I don't think Porsche drivers should look down on the Ford drivers. They just drive a car meeting their needs that they can afford.
If I am reading it correctly, the dishonest part of the Helvetica/Arial story, if there is any, is the one that has to do with Monotype's role in it rather than Microsoft's.
Look ma, they did it again: http://sueddeutsche.de/computer/artikel/587/66521/ The article is in German, but in short: Segoe looks so similar to Linotype's Frutiger Next that Linotype has filed a complaint at the EU Community Trademark Office in Alicante, Spain.
See also: http://www.page-online.de/weblog/comments/1017/
and: http://www.werbeblogger.de/index.php/2005/12/30/frutiger_des_zorns