A commercial company or organization funded the creation of a free font, or designers who decided to distribute a typeface or weight for free as a method to market their other paid fonts. Every font, and that includes free fonts, has an End User License Agreement (EULA), and it is very important to learn what type of things may or may not be done with a font. https://talesfromthecrack.com/what-are-the-best-google-fonts/