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Freetype Lands In... Microsoft Office?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the share-well-everyone dept.

phy_si_kal writes "Now Microsoft must love free software. Indeed, Office 2011 for Mac (beta 5 at least) uses Freetype! Somehow they figured out the free software 'clean room implementation' of their own (patented) TrueType technology must better suit their needs."

5 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Truetype is Apple's technology by WillAdams · · Score: 4, Informative

    Their ``Royal'' font format.

    http://www.microsoft.com/typography/truetypehistory.mspx

    Microsoft got access to it by trading to Apple their ``TrueImage'' PostScript clone (seen that used anywhere lately?)

    William

    --
    Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
  2. Re:Must burn. by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know who wrote TrueType but MS using FreeType must burn them up. I know it would tick me off.

    From Wikipedia: "TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. TrueType has become the most common format for fonts on both the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows operating systems."

    There was a story on Slashdot back in July talking about FreeType celebrating the expiration of the Apple's TrueType patent.

    --
    These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
  3. Patents expired by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Go to www.truetype.org and read the section on patents.
    "All patents related to the TrueType bytecode interpreter have expired since May 2010. More information regarding this topic is available at our patents page."
    All patents were originally held by Apple up to May 2010.

  4. Re:Must burn. by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Informative

    TrueType is a font standard, which has largely been succeeded by OpenType. TrueType was developed by Apple and licensed by Microsoft, while OpenType was co-developed by Adobe and Microsoft.

    On Windows, Microsoft has two text APIs: Uniscribe & GDI, which combine to provide text rendering and a whole lot more, and DirectWrite, which is new to Windows 7 and has much better quality, improved OpenType support, and GPU acceleration. These technologies are so baked into Windows that I'm not surprised at all that they wouldn't want to port them to OS X.

  5. Re:Must burn. by duffbeer703 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's done in a Mac Business Unit separate from the Office team.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK