Fonts for use in embedded GUI

Question

I am looking for fonts for use in an embedded GUI application with a small display and keypad.

Are there any free fonts available that people have used? What about the licenses for free fonts? Are there any special requirements for an application like an embedded GUI? For example, include the License in the source code.

Take the GNU FreeFont family fonts. The website talks about using these fonts in documents or altering them to fit your needs. If I have a way to import those fonts into my application (unaltered) and use them on my display, is that considered the same as using them to create a document with, let's say, AbiWord or OpenOffice?

Also, what are the practical differences between free (open source, e.g. GNU FreeFont), license free (e.g. Fonts from link in Mark Rushakoff's comment below) and royalty free as far as fonts are concerned?

Answer 1

The X11 bitmap fonts are pretty dynamite, and the licenses for them are pretty unrestrictive: briefly, the Adobe fonts (Courier, Helvetica, New Century Schoolbook, Symbol, Times) say

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notices appear in all copies and that both those copyright notices and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation [etc.]

And the Bigelow & Holmes fonts (Lucida Sans/Bright/Typewriter) say

Users and possessors of this source code are hereby granted a nonexclusive, royalty-free copyright and design patent license to use this code in individual and commercial software.

Of course there are other conditions to fulfill about not modifying the fonts and providing the same copyright notices to the user.