> "You can host the font file on your server (browser must obviously download it) but you cannot actually distribute it - whatever that means, it could be risky with open source apps for example"
I ran into this exact issue as well. I can only imagine that there's some obscure legal nuance to this where if the font is loosely accessible then somehow the enduser gains some sort of rights to it.
In some dialogue with the rights holder, they were perfectly cool with the font being embedded in the .exe itself, which makes the font trivially extractable - as they understood, but were simply insistent that the font not be directly distributed to users as a stand-alone file.
I ran into this exact issue as well. I can only imagine that there's some obscure legal nuance to this where if the font is loosely accessible then somehow the enduser gains some sort of rights to it.
In some dialogue with the rights holder, they were perfectly cool with the font being embedded in the .exe itself, which makes the font trivially extractable - as they understood, but were simply insistent that the font not be directly distributed to users as a stand-alone file.