Segoe UI Font in non windows systems

Question

I am developing the frontend of a web application and the design requires the use of the Segoe UI font. I used this font for a few text areas but in non Windows systems (Mac OS borwsers, Android, etc) those texts don't render with the Segoe UI font.

After googling this I found that this font is used by Microsoft. My question is. Can just use the font files in the frontend an use @face-font to include the font in the frontend? Or do I need some licence or something like that?

Answer 1

You can't license Segoe UI from Microsoft without direct contact, you can license the mono font from Ascender Corp who are linked to from Microsoft webpage for Segoe UI, however it is not the same as Segoe UI.

I would suggest Open Sans as an alternative to the Segoe UI font, it is quite similar and has much more open licensing for using as webfont (that link is actually to Google's hosted version of the font) - So you could have Segoe as the main font then fall back to Open Sans on non Windows 7+ Systems.

Answer 2

Technically you can embed the font through css, but I don't think the license will allow you do do that legally. Couldn't find out right off the bat though - msft's licensing is as always a maze to navigate.

Could you find an alternative font on Google web fonts or Typekit and use instad? They all have permissive licenses? (Open Sans is quite similar, for example)