True technically. I make the rash assumption that hint programs for similar letterforms will have certain common patterns. The idea being not that one could use the same set of hint programs for multiple fonts, but that one could take bits and pieces and strategies from one set of hints and modify them as needed to instruct another font. So for that one might have separate licensing. (Consider the view that a TT Instruction stream - bytecodes - is to a high-level TT hinting language as machine code or Java bytecode is to a high-level programming language. So one could release "sourcecode" to various hinting programs with some kind of LGPL so they could even be used in proprietary fonts. Maybe that's completely impractical, but it's kinda fun to think about; I won't know until I do some experimenting and research.)Gregg, Although I'm by no way expert in hinting, but i think the way you describe the hinting process is a bit misleading. The reason is I think a hint program will almost always tied to a font, maintly because the hint program will always refer to a control points, which will differs form one outline to another. Thus, it does not make much sense to seperate the hint program from the outline.
Anyway, features that you describe for a hinting program, I think the program that fit's is Microsoft Visual Truetype.
Another program that might suite your need is mensis. It is being develop by Geroge Williams, the same person who develop fontforge. Mensis is strictly for editing truetype instruction, and it does
thanks,