Simple: for now the fonts are in beta, and do not include the hinting instructions. This may be in development, but faces some legal issues with Apple patents. So until there's a patent-free hinting mechanism, for use in fonts, or Apple agrees with a royaltee-free license on hinting mechanisms, hinted fonts cannot be freely distributed.
Sorry, but you really do not know what you are talking about. What cannot be freely distributed are *rasterisers* that make use of Apple patented technology that interpret TT instruction sets. Anyone can make, hint and ship -- freely or for a licensing fee -- a font with a full set of hint instructions. What you cannot do is build a rasteriser that interprets these hints without licensing the technology from Apple.
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Theory set out to produce texts that could not be processed successfully
by the commonsensical assumptions that ordinary language puts into play.
There are texts of theory that resist meaning so powerfully ... that the
very process of failing to comprehend the text is part of what it has to offer
- Lentricchia & Mclaughlin, _Critical terms for literary study_
