06.29.07

Gemini version available ♊︎

The Ill Effects of Software Patents on Font Rendering

Posted in Debian, Novell, Patents, Ubuntu at 9:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

We recently spoke about proprietary and/or patent-encumbered software, including fonts and their rendering. We discussed a particular controversy and later pointed out that proprietary software may be included in out-of-the-box Opensuse.

Because there was a lot of unwanted noise over Truetype and Novell at at the time, perhaps it is worth quoting part of a new interview with a Freetype developer.

[Q:] If the patent owner of hinting gives the Freetype project a free license, would you accept it?

David Turner [of Freetype]: It really depends on the terms of this “free license”. Basically if it means the patent can not be freely re-licensed to other people, I really don’t see why I would find that useful. If you absolutely need the bytecode interpreter, you can be patient and wait for October 9, 2009, when the patents expire.

[...]

There is no clear answer as to what is best. Personally, I can’t stand native TrueType hinted fonts anymore, they look too distorted to me, even if their contrast is better. My favorite Linux distribution is Ubuntu at the moment, and the first thing I do after installing it is to wipe the version of FreeType provided with it to get rid of the bytecode interpreter :o)

Also, I still don’t understand why Debian and Ubuntu keep distributing patent-infringing code in FreeType, while they keep MP3 and DVD playback out of their normal installs. I’m not even sure it’s DFSG compliant…

Is anybody else getting the feeling that a patent reform or overhaul is desperately needed?

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

3 Comments

  1. Anonymous said,

    June 30, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Gravatar

    > later pointed out that proprietary software may be included in out-of-the-box Opensuse.

    You’re such great disclosure journalists. NOT!

    Breaking news: the boxed openSUSE contains and has for long proprietary software. Same for the openSUSE download DVD (eg Flash, RealPlayer, Opera).

  2. Roy Schestowitz said,

    June 30, 2007 at 8:34 pm

    Gravatar

    I was under the impression that SUSE (maybe I got confused here with SLES/SLED) had some proprietary bits because there was a discussion about this in Ted Haeger’s blog last year. It revolved around some people’s desire for a more Fedora-like set of applications. Also see:

    http://boycottnovell.com/2007/06/10/opensuse-survey-commercial/

    Either way, thanks for pointing that out.

  3. This is all ridiculous! said,

    January 14, 2008 at 10:57 pm

    Gravatar

    Oh c’mon!
    You said in the article that UBUNTU DISTRIBUTES TRUETYPE TOO!
    The site says BOYCOTT NOVELL, NOT BOYCOTT UBUNTU!

    Also, although they failed miserably, Novell was trying to do something good for the linux community when they “signed the treaty”. Note that Microsoft is now targeting Novell SUSE linux explicitly in their attack-ads. I don’t think that the decision Novell made was right, but Novell has done a lot for the linux community. Proprietary Software on Linux is a bad thing, but right now it is somewhat needed because if the average WinDo$e user found out about Linux and it DIDNT support their favourite flash sites, java, fonts, etc they would laugh and call us linux users n00bs and keep on funding Bill Gates’s retirement. Novell is trying to make linux more comfortable for Microsoft users.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 28/05/2023: eGates System Collapses, More High TCO Stories (Microsoft Windows)

    Links for the day



  2. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, May 27, 2023



  3. No More Twitter, Mastodon, and Diaspora for Tux Machines (Goodbye to Social Control Media)

    People would benefit from mass abandonment of such pseudo-social pseudo-media.



  4. Links 28/05/2023: New Wine and More

    Links for the day



  5. Links 27/05/2023: Plans Made for GNU's 40th Anniversary

    Links for the day



  6. Social Control Media Needs to be Purged and We Need to Convince Others to Quit It Too (to Protect Ourselves as Individuals and as a Society)

    With the Tux Machines anniversary (19 years) just days away we seriously consider abandoning all social control media accounts of that site, including Mastodon and Diaspora; social control networks do far more harm than good and they’ve gotten a lot worse over time



  7. Anonymously Travelling: Still Feasible?

    The short story is that in the UK it's still possible to travel anonymously by bus, tram, and train (even with shades, hat and mask/s on), but how long for? Or how much longer have we got before this too gets banned under the false guise of "protecting us" (or "smart"/"modern")?



  8. With EUIPO in Focus, and Even an EU Kangaroo Tribunal, EPO Corruption (and Cross-Pollination With This EU Agency) Becomes a Major Liability/Risk to the EU

    With the UPC days away (an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court system, tied to the European Union in spite of critical deficiencies) it’s curious to see EPO scandals of corruption spilling over to the European Union already



  9. European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Supported by the EPO's Applicants, So Why Is It Still There?

    This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different (“Patente ohne Wert”)



  10. EPO Applicants Complain That Patent Quality Sank and EPO Management Isn't Listening (Nor Caring)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German (here is the first of the batch); the following is the second of the three (“Kritik am Europäischen Patentamt – Patente ohne Wert?”)



  11. German Media About Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC) and the European Patent Office (EPO)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German; this is the first of the three (“Industrie kritisiert Europäisches Patentamt”)



  12. Geminispace Continues to Grow Even If (or When) Stéphane Bortzmeyer Stops Measuring Its Growth

    A Gemini crawler called Lupa (Free/libre software) has been used for years by Stéphane Bortzmeyer to study Gemini and report on how the community was evolving, especially from a technical perspective; but his own instance of Lupa has produced no up-to-date results for several weeks



  13. Links 27/05/2023: Goodbyes to Tina Turner

    Links for the day



  14. HMRC: You Can Click and Type to Report Crime, But No Feedback or Reference Number Given

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported 7 days ago to HMRC (equivalent to the IRS in the US, more or less); but there has been no visible progress and no tracking reference is given to identify the report



  15. IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, May 26, 2023



  16. One Week After Sirius Open Source Was Reported to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for Tax Fraud: No Response, No Action, Nothing...

    One week ago we reported tax abuses of Sirius ‘Open Source’ to HMRC; we still wait for any actual signs that HMRC is doing anything at all about the matter (Sirius has British government clients, so maybe they’d rather not look into that, in which case HMRC might be reported to the Ombudsman for malpractice)



  17. Links 26/05/2023: Weston 12.0 Highlights and US Debt Limit Panic

    Links for the day



  18. Gemini Links 26/05/2023: New People in Gemini

    Links for the day



  19. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, May 25, 2023



  20. Links 26/05/2023: Qt 6.5.1 and Subsystems in GNUnet

    Links for the day



  21. Links 25/05/2023: Mesa 23.1.1 and Debian Reunion

    Links for the day



  22. Links 25/05/2023: IBM as Leading Wayland Pusher

    Links for the day



  23. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 24, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 24, 2023



  24. Links 25/05/2023: Istio 1.16.5 and Curl 8.1.1

    Links for the day



  25. Gemini Links 25/05/2023: On Profit and Desire for Gemini

    Links for the day



  26. SiliconANGLE: Sponsored by Microsoft and Red Hat to Conduct the Marriage Ceremony

    SiliconANGLE insists that paying SiliconANGLE money for coverage does not lead to bias, but every sane person who keeps abreast of SiliconANGLE — and I read their entire feed every day — knows that it’s a ludicrous lie (Red Hat/IBM and the Linux Foundation also buy puff pieces and “event coverage” from SiliconANGLE, so it’s marketing disguised as “journalism”



  27. Links 24/05/2023: Podman Desktop 1.0, BSDCan 2024, and More

    Links for the day



  28. Gemini Links 24/05/2023: Razors, Profit, and More

    Links for the day



  29. [Meme] When the Patent Office Controls Kangaroo Patent Courts and Judges

    The EPO has been hijacked by industry and its lobbyists; now the same is happening to EU patent courts, even though it is illegal and unconstitutional



  30. The Illegally 'Revised' Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is Disgracing the Perception of Law and Order in the European Union

    The Unified Patent Court (UPC) isn’t legal, the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is being altered on the fly (by a person patently ineligible to do so), and so it generally looks like even patent courts across Europe might soon become as corrupt as the European Patent Office, which has no basis in the Rule of the Law and is basically just a front for large corporations (most of them aren’t even European)


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts