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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This makes me worried... by bogaboga · 2010-07-19 03:52 · Score: 1, Troll

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 statement above makes me worried because it suggests that the Open Source Community could not find their way around these patents for two decades! Think about it....20 years!
That's enough time for an infant born at the time of patent filing to [legally] be a parent at its expiry...and that's a long time folks.