A user has asked if GNU Unifont can be used with commercial (non-free) software. The answer is yes. The GNU Font Embedding Exception and the SIL OFL allow for that. See the next section for details. The main purpose of the licensing is to require derivative fonts that others create to be released to the public under the same licensing terms, not to prohibit the use of those fonts with certain software. Thus, preserving the license terms in derivative fonts provides a public benefit. The licenses also provide acknowledgement of previous Unifont contributors for their volunteer work.
Copyright, Derivative Works, and License
Thousands of Unifont glyphs are creations of individual Unifont contributors; those glyphs enjoy copyright protections of various degrees. Some of those contributions are letter forms of established alphabets while others are icon (symbol) designs such as the many animal icons which, as artistic designs, have even stronger international protections. See for example this memorandum of applicable laws of Berne Union member country Germany (where Unifont was created): Unifont Copyright Protections.
Derivative variants of Unifont are permitted under the terms of the dual license: GNU GPLv2+ with the GNU Font Embedding Exception and the SIL Open Font License version 1.1. These are free licenses. The remainder of this section provides details.
These font files are licensed under the GNU General Public License, either Version 2 or (at your option) a later version, with the exception that embedding the font in a document does not in itself constitute a violation of the GNU GPL. The full terms of the license are in LICENSE.txt.
As of Unifont version 13.0.04, the fonts are dual-licensed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL) version 1.1 and the GNU GPL 2+ with the GNU font embedding exception. The SIL OFL is available at OFL-1.1.txt.