You can also download it from the link.
Re:The Android Font: Roboto
by unicornporn on Sunday March 11, 2012 @05:16PM
(#3691312)
I don't understand why they haven't added it to the Google Web Fonts directory yet.
Re:The Android Font: Roboto
by patrickaljord on Sunday March 11, 2012 @06:46PM
(#3691507)
You can already:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:regular,medium...;
See this post:
https://plus.google.com/108761828584265913206/posts/JyBRu1gs...
Probably because they don't really want people to use it. I imagine the license has to be fairly open to allow for unencumbered distribution with android, but it's a part of the android brand. Every time it gets used outside of android makes it a little more generic and dilutes the android brand a little bit.
If it were visually distinguishable from Helvetica, maybe. But it's really not. It's more modern, more complete, and probably "better" in some typographical way that I don't understand. But it's really not. What this represents to the free software community is a repackaging of a Helvetica-like font in a way that doesn't suck. To anyone concerned about the "Android brand" it's a wash.
So it's ok to use it in personal or commercial projects (by including a copy of the license an propper attribution).
The font can be found in the folder data/fonts on the Android SDK 4.0 / r14, and also the Readme file that states the license.