Curses! Foiled again... Drat, drat and double-drat!
Is there any easy way to get the fonts out of the .exe/.sit.hqx to use on Linux?
There is a Debian package which you point at the fonts and it unpacks/installs them. I think the .exe files are just Microsoft CAB files encapsulated in an executable, and there's a CAB extractor for Linux.
http://www.kyz.uklinux.net/cabextract.php3
Actually, one impression I seemed to get was that Redmond was annoyed with Linux vendors redistributing the fonts with the EULA intact, as specified in the EULA. This may have been the "abuse" some flack was referring to. "Oh no! The evil Linux people are redistributing the fonts in accordance with our EULA! Those sneaky bastards!". SO basically, Redmond being paranoid fucktards again.
Yeah, so monstrosities like Comic Sans, Arial, and Impact are gone from the M$ site, but so are decent ones like Georgia, Trebuchet, etc. Not that good, but then that relatively loose EULA (ha-ha!) does mean that you can still get them elsewhere legitimately, such as: http://beebo.org/core-fonts/