...while we were discussing font names...

[bkph@ai.mit.edu (Berthold K.P. Horn)]

Hi:

I don't know if you happened to notice, but the list I sent had over
1000 entries, up from 770 when I last sent a message ont his matter.

This illustrates one of the problems with `growing your own' names.

P.S. I didn't mean to belittle other font sources when I mentioned that
generally Adobe fonts are what author's call for.  Just an empirical
observation of actual DVI files submitted.

It does seem reasonable to use some scheme for identifying the foundry.  
In my experience there is actually rarely a problem with mismatch in metrics,
which are usually slavishly copied, but actual character outlines,
particularly for `special' non-alphanumeric charcters.  For example,
BitStream Times-Roman has identical font metrics to Adobe's Times-Roman, and
the outlines for alphanumeric characters are virtually identical (except for
the distinctive swash on Adobe's Q), but the outlines for non-alphabetic
characters are quite different (possibly for some complex copyright related
reason).