GNOME FOUNDATION AND BITSTREAM INC. ANNOUNCE LONG-TERM AGREEMENT TO BRING HIGH QUALITY FONTS TO FREE SOFTWARE

Ten fonts will be released for use under a special open license agreement, giving advanced font capabilities to all free and open source software developers and users.

Press Contact:
Leslie Proctor                          
GNOME Foundation                        
(801)446-4638                           
proctors@pacbell.net                    

Bob Thomas
Director of Product Management
Bitstream Inc.  
(617)520-8376                   
bthomas@bitstream.com

NEW YORK, New York  January 22, 2003  

In a move to fill the last remaining gap in font display
capabilities for open source software, the GNOME
Foundation has reached an agreement with Bitstream
(NASDAQ: BITS) to release fonts under an open source
license.  A total of ten serif, sans serif and
monospaced fonts will be released under a special open
source license, after they have been adapted to meet
the requirements for technical use.  The set of ten
fonts will bring advanced font capabilities to all
developers and users of free and open source software.

"The donation of these fonts to the free software
community is the final piece that will give full
functionality to projects like Freetype, XFT2 and X
Render extensions of the XFree86 project, Pango, KDE
and Trolltechs QT, among many others." said Jim
Gettys of HP and GNOME Foundation board member. 
"These fonts will be available to all developers and
users, giving GNOME and other open source programs a
great look right out of the box that has been lacking
until now."

The Bitstream Vera fonts will be available for free
copying and redistribution and can be modified as long
as the font name is changed.  The fonts cannot be
packaged by themselves for sale, but can be sold with
any software.  The GNOME Foundation will incorporate
the fonts into future GNOME releases, giving end users
of all levels, as well as GNOME developers, the
advanced display capabilities they offer.

"Bitstream has had a long relationship with the
developer community," explained Bob Thomas, director
of product management, Bitstream. "Were very happy to
contribute these fonts to the open source community
and we hope that developers will generate new fonts
and continue to enhance the experience of end-users at
all levels."

"GNOME was created to give free software users a
friendly, powerful desktop environment," said Miguel
de Icaza, GNOME Foundation president and CTO of
Ximian, Inc.  "This agreement with Bitstream will
enhance the experience and graphics capabilities of
corporate, enterprise, educational, governmental and
individual GNOME users and will give powerful tools to
open source developers everywhere."

"Bitstream's generous donation is a tangible measure
of the importance and growth of open source," said
Russ Nelson, VP of the Open Source Initiative. "I
praise the GNOME Foundations efforts to bring this
agreement into being."

The agreement between Bitstream and the GNOME
Foundation will bring invaluable tools to open source
developers and users worldwide.

URLs of Organizations Listed in this Press Release
Bitstream: http://www.bitstream.com
GNOME: http://www.gnome.org
Freetype: http://www.freetype.org
KDE: http://www.kde.org
Open Source Initiative: http://www.opensource.org
Pango: http://www.pango.org
Trolltech: http://www.trolltech.com
XFree86: http://www.xfree86.org

About GNOME
GNOME is a free software project that is developing a
complete, easy to use desktop for GNU/Linux (more
commonly known as Linux), BSD, Solaris, HP-UX and a
variety of other Unix and Unix-like operating systems.
 The GNOME desktop is used by millions of people
around the world.  More than 700 computer developers,
including over 100 full-time, paid developers,
contribute their time and effort to the project.

About the GNOME Foundation
Comprised of hundreds of volunteer developers and
industry-leading companies, the GNOME Foundation is an
organization committed to supporting the advancement
of GNOME. The Foundation provides organizational,
financial and legal support to the GNOME project and
helps determine its vision and roadmap. GNOME is an
entirely free user environment for desktops, networked
servers and portable Internet devices.  The modern
architecture and design of GNOME includes a
technically advanced application development platform
and a powerful end-user desktop environment.  Major
leading software industry and computer manufacturers
support the GNOME development effort, which is led by
a worldwide community of volunteers.  More information
on GNOME is available at www.gnome.org.

About Bitstream
Bitstream Inc. (Nasdaq:BITS) is the leading developer
of font technology, digital fonts, and custom font
designs. Bitstream licenses its award-winning TrueDocŪ
and Font Fusion technologies to Web and application
developers, and to manufacturers of information
appliances, wireless and handheld devices, set-top
boxes, embedded systems, and printers. Setting the
standard for excellence in font technology, Bitstream
holds numerous key patents in the U.S. that cover the
creation of portable fonts for the Internet. Building
on this experience, Bitstream has released
ThunderHawk, a breakthrough technology for the
wireless Web.

#  #  #

Bitstream and TrueDoc are registered trademarks, and
Font Fusion, MyFonts.com, ThunderHawk, and Vera are
trademarks of Bitstream Inc. Other technologies and
brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of
their respective companies.