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openSUSE Hobbled By Microsoft Patents

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the or-at-least-disfigured dept.

kripkenstein writes "openSUSE 10.2 no longer enables ClearType (which would improve the appearance of fonts). The reason given on the openSUSE mailing list for not enabling it is, 'this feature is covered by several Microsoft patents and should not be activated in any default build of the library.' As reported on and discussed, this matter may be connected to the Microsoft-Novell deal. If so, Novell should have received a license for the Microsoft patents, assuming the deal covered all relevant patents. Does the license therefore extend only to SUSE, but not openSUSE?"

13 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Prior art by Ph33r+th3+g(O)at · · Score: 5, Informative

    Steve Gibson pointed out decades-old prior art that would invalidate the Cleartype patent (if our patent system weren't corrupt) several years ago.

    --
    I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
    1. Re:Prior art by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The funny thing is I just installed OpenSUSE 10.2 alpha 3 and the fonts look better than ever; if this is how they look without cleartype, who needs it?

    2. Re:Prior art by tomz16 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any time I've turned on cleartype on a fresh install of windows, my first impression has always been that it just made fonts look "blurrier", for lack of a better word.

      However, after using it for a day or two, turning it off is absolutely painful. IMHO, it really DOES make text MUCH easier to read on an LCD.

      -Tom

  2. Novell is the Judas Goat. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think Novell has become an wholly owned subsidiary of MSFT and is being used for the express purpose of setting up precedents and creating more and more FUD. I have seen a version of anti-aliasing and sub-pixel addressing way back when in, of all places, grc.com.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Novell is the Judas Goat. by duncanmhor · · Score: 5, Informative

      Judas Goat - used at an abbatoir to lull animals into a false sense of security.

  3. Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cleartype is just sub-pixel AA which existed long before MS ever used it for font rendering. Bytecode type hinting is patented by (IIRC) Apple, it is usually disabled in Freetype and and an alternative (auto-hinting) method used instead.

    Apples and oranges, the bug reporter is confused or trolling.

  4. It's only the filtering by oergiR · · Score: 5, Informative

    AFAICT, subpixel rendering is not disabled, only the 5-tap filter that's supposed to reduce colour fringes. See http://www.grc.com/cttech.htm. Apparently this is one of the things Microsoft has patented, and I haven't seen any "prior art" for this specific technique. In my humble opinion disabling the filter is not much of a loss as it just makes fonts look fuzzier.

    1. Re:It's only the filtering by b0z0n3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      So, Microsoft has patented blurring text?

      I don't want to pay M$ everytime I have a couple of beers....

      --
      (write-line *coolsig*)
  5. never so by Deternal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As far as I can read, it has never been enabled. It needs to be enabled at compile time, which the ansvar to the linked bug report clearly states by c&p of the relevant info from the FreeType lib.

    This is a complete non-issue and has been known for a while. It predates the Novell/MS agreement.

    1. Re:never so by oergiR · · Score: 5, Informative
      Mod parent up.

      The main developer of FreeType decided to disable the filter in September. The Novell deal was later and had nothing to do with this.

  6. This is completely clean - by lmb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    openSUSE does not ship code which is known to infringe patents or IP, so the patents either get invalidated (lengthy and expensive) or the code disabled / removed. This policy is not affected by the NOVL/MSFT deal at all; quite the contrary, it has always been Novell/SUSE's policy to not ship such code.

    Just like openSUSE doesn't ship infringing Linux drivers, or Debian not shipping certain licenses.

    What the heck is the fuzz about?

  7. the openSUSE team did the right thing by w_albright · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO, they did the right thing. One of openSUSE's goals is to be completely open source software (hence the 'open' in 'openSUSE'). Even if they may have the right to use them due to the MS/Novell patent deal, they do not want the distro encumbered with non-OSS software in the default install. Fedora 7 also disables this feature.

    If you want a distro protected (encumbered) by MS patents, buy SUSE Enterprise.

  8. Re:It is about precedents by twistedcubic · · Score: 5, Funny


    In my opinion, open/free Linux is still 5-10 years behind Windows and OSX in terms of desktop functionality ...

    Yeah, a friend of mine has a Windows 95 machine, and I tried it out recently. Man, I was BLOWN AWAY. I've been wasting productivity on my Gentoo and Ubuntu machines, when all this time Windows 95 just makes it much easier. I mean, it looks and functions better, and everything just works. My friend showed me how to take all my LaTeX files (100 or so) for my book, with all the revision history in Git, and convert it all to Microsoft Word. Wow! Productivity SQUARED! After watching my reaction, my firend slapped me on the head (really hard) and exclaimed, "It's the APPS, stupid!"