Fonts

For a long time, fonts have been a problem on linux. Those of us who choose to use the open source software system have had to rely on either somewhat inferior free fonts, or copying across fonts we have on a non-free system on the same machine (typically windows).
Occasionally the problem becomes severe, especially in the past, it seems, with respect to MathML: the part of XML which extends HTML to allow markup to include nicely formatted mathematical equations. It seemed (at least this member of the incogniscenti) to be almost impossible to use the lovely, free, TeX fonts to do anything web-related. And assuming that everyone had access to the same fonts on their machines was dangerous.
As recently as a year ago, it was the case with major sites that either one could view a bad markup of the mathematics, or a nicer markup with a bunch of the characters replaced by similar ones: chi was replaced by x, phi by f, etc.
It now appears, however, that things are about to get a major boost: there is an initiative, STIX fonts, which is about to release their version 1.0 of scientific and technical fonts.
This ought to help unify the font situation for the scientific and technical community. I really can't wait!

Yours, cheering,
N.