Here's the thing: Robin_Watts (apparently Robin Watts ) and kens (apparently Ken Sharp) have told me over IRC that the fonts are only licensed to Artifex by URW with the condition to have it shared as AFPL. That means that a new license from the creators (with the corresponding money and willingness) would be required for them to offer it as AGPL or anything else.

The conversation should appear at https://ghostscript.com/irclogs/2018/01/03.html eventually.

OK so I contacted URW back then to see if perhaps they could accept licensing as e.g. AGPL.

I still didn't get any sort of reply

I'm so extremely tempted by Univers but it's just so frustrating that there's no true FOSS version

So according to two links I've found, there's an open font called Universalist-std

but I can't find that

So in this document there's a list of thinks, one of which theoretically should host Universalist http://designingwithlibreoffice.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DWL_fullbook.pdf

First list has a copy of Universalist! http://arkandis.tuxfamily.org/adffonts.html

let's hope it works, is nice and has available source code

I was lied to

that's Universalis, a Futura-based font

OOOOOOOOOH I FOUND ONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Apparently there's FreeUniversal and a fork called Perun AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

here's the official Perun website apparently https://localfonts.eu/freefonts/bulgarian-cyrillic/perun/

and here's the guy who made it https://www.behance.net/stefanpeev

absolute respect for this absolute 👏 mad 👏 lad 👏

there's apparently also Sophia Nubian as well

I'm impressed - how was it SO DAMN HARD to find these open source versions of Univers? Makes me think it may have even been on purpose, but I rather think that it's just that too little people have been interested and those who were asked to people who didn't want to make the effort to check.

Funny thing, Perun is hosted at Dropbox, which actually uses Atlas Grotesque, a neogrotesque font that just so happens to feel a lot like Univers

Sophia Nubian is even available in distros like Debian (https://packages.debian.org/stretch/fonts-sil-sophia-nubian) and Ubuntu (https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/fonts/fonts-sil-sophia-nubian)... but not on Arch! Huh.

Will compare these now

Biggest issue: neither seem to have condensed variations. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

They also have minor annoyances like these: the "y" in Sophia Nubian, and the "a" in italic Perun. But regardless, I still don't have an open condensed version of Univers, which is the worst.

I'm going to try to both be more specific about what I'm looking for and make it so it's broader and I can find new stuff.

I'm looking for an open source neogrotesque sans-serif typeface with a wide set of variants (particularly regular, bold, italic, bold italic, and all of those but for condensed), something along the lines of Univers or Suisse Int'l.

For a lack of something that's exactly like I was looking for... a superfamily that seems close enough and somehow isn't well known yet https://tribby.com/fonts/barlow/

OK fediverse, which one do you prefer?

First: Univers
Second: Barlow

I dig this design, it reminds me of textbooks I had during high school and the Apple Watch.

@vaartis I mean, it seems worth it, does any better font exist at all?

@vaartis thx

here's the original https://mstdn.io/@espectalll/101395013446543405

@vaartis that's exactly the idea, I drew over a He-Man frame

@espectalll $2