FreeType Project Cheers TrueType Patent Expiration

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday July 19, 2010 @03:44AM from the just-wait-it-out-i-guess dept.

FlorianMueller writes "The FreeType project celebrates the expiration of Apple's TrueType bytecode patents. The open source font rendering engine now has the bytecode technology enabled by default. The relevant code existed for some time, but the project felt forced to disable it and advise everyone not to use it due to patent encumbrance. The 20-year maximum of validity of software patents is long, but sometimes the stuff that becomes available is still useful. The Unisys GIF patent was an example. And anything open-sourced 20 years ago would also be patent-free by now (except for the code that has since been added)."

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Re:Funny Enough... by Waffle+Iron · 2010-07-19 04:21 · Score: 4, Funny

I suppose Apple had no issue recompiling with the flag turned on.
IIRC, the Freetype FAQ suggested that for commercial use, you could talk to Apple and get a license so that you can legally recompile with the flags on. I assume Apple sent an email to 127.0.0.1 to request such permission.