Slashdot Mirror
FreeType posts patent warning
Anonymous Coward writes "According to the the FreeType web page, there have been some new concerns raised about Apple's patents on TrueType. I hope this doesn't affect the planned TrueType support in XF86 4. " It appears that they are still checking into the issue, but I'd really like TrueType support. A lot. Let's hope Apple responds nicely.
Does the Linux community really have to grab everything for free? I'm sure the development of TrueType wasn't exactly cheap, and Apple is under no obligation to just give the rights away.
Why should anyone pay for MacOS when the patented technology could just be reimplemented for free?
It is a trademark holder that must actively prevent their mark from being released into the public domain by failing to protect it. There is no such requirement with regard to patents.
What would be interesting to see is whether Apple takes the approach to patents that many companies do (IBM in particular) - that patenting is a source of licensing revenue rather than a means of denying entry into a given technological market, i.e. an 'open licensing' policy.
Open source patent infringements aren't really an issue in that case - no money made directly off of XFree86's licensing of the technology, no reason to pursue a patent license, and no -real- reason to pursue any other expensive infringement action.
I.
man cool fonts on X would really do de trick. specially for graphic people... gimp freaks... and stuff like that... linux could use some cool fonts... and don't come with that crap we already have some cool fonts im sick of the same four damn types!
Some people have this notion called "ethics," which means there's no price that will convince them to do something they know is wrong. (Now if only we could isolate ourselves from the deranged few who don't....)
It doesn't help that every line of code I write could infringe a different patent, yet having invented all of it myself I have no practical way of finding out which if any apply, and the chances I could afford to license any of them anyway are slim.
Patents are just about impossible for outsiders to find or read. Clearly we should be able to bring a class action against anyone who describes a patented algorithm without mentioning the patents that they know will forbid its use.
The military can classify patent applications. So yes, they can get *both*.
Sorry, my mistake, I thought you would have been able to formulate a well reasoned response.
one word: linuxppc. BTW, youre also an idiot.
Threatening a public backlash? Are you stupid? How could he threaten a public backlash? Does he pull the strings of public opinion?
Public opinion simply _is_. The poster was correct to note that Apple's behavior in this instance will affect public opinion of Apple, period. Perhaps you don't like that; that would simply indicate that you're incapable of dealing with social interaction with your peers.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
SGI fonts as standard are twice as big as on other platforms...SGI fonts suck. You can see problems like this arise when you run java applets which will run ok on other platforms but when ported to sgi's will display crappily with HUGE fonts. try it with the linux.com chat applet if you dont believe me..i hate SGI fonts anyway.
I assume you're replying to a comment in this thread, not to the original article, given that the original article wasn't discussing free fonts, it was discussing patent encumbrance of font rasterizing software.
Because xfstt, being another TrueType rasterizer, would presumably be hit by the same patent.
Michael J. Peck, you raving lunatic. Obviously I was talking about the Linux using public, and everyone knows how easily those servile sheep can be influenced. Just take a look around you.
BTW, I don't have peers.
i should point out that the benign GIF LZW patent issue was not raised until it was widely used/implemented. and then everyone got their arses kicked due to the sleepy LZW patent suddenly being enforced.
...which would presumably be threatened by the same patent. (Could we please have no more "use xfstt instead" postings unless they contain a good reason why the patent won't affect xfstt?)
What kind of evidence do you have for this? Can you point to published documents and/or software dated before May 8, 1988?
If so, it would be an excellent argument to overturn the patents.
Alternatively, I think some of the Metafont work may anticipate the TrueType patents. People don't give it very many props now, but it contains some pretty amazing technology, and is truly one of the pioneering Open Source projects.
But these kind of claims require documentation.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
"TKJRTICTEFSDP"
Slashdot is one word, not two. Perhaps you need instruction on how to properly assemble an acronym. Anon smackass.
Talisman
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
The previous comment is central- if it's true, that Apple failed to file one year after publishing, it's not a valid patent (Even if the USPTO issued one to Apple. The examiners may not have noticed (or even worse, cared) that the deadline had expired on their right to file for patents.).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
What I, anonymous coward, really meant to say is that I love linux, and that I have my finger shoved so far up my rectum that it is impeding my ability to think clearly. :P
Ummmm, gold....
And if two people think up the SAME idea 10 minutes apart, but the first one gets to the patent office first, does he deserve worldwide exclusive rights to the idea, even though the other guy thought it up independantly? Face it, holmes, software patents are pure and utter BS. The sooner we are rid of them, the sooner this industry can start to make some real progress.
IANAL, but I think that if a patent holder doesn't protect it's intellectual property, it loses the right to defend. If Freetype has been around for a long time, it could be argued that this is the case.
I'm not a lawyer either, but I can tell you that patents are a little bit different than trademarks, where the owner risks losing protection altogether by failing to enforce their mark. With a patent, so long as you obtain one within a year of first publishing, displaying, or selling your invention, you own the right to make others stop using or selling that invention for 20 years. If you choose not to enforce your patent for the first 10, and then go after people when your invention falls into widespread use, that's your prerogative.
In Apple's case, it looks like they missed the one year deadline. They published the TrueType specification and software using it circa 1990, but didn't file for their patents until 2 years later.
Of course, if you scan in a font, trace the outline and save it as a new font, you're creating a different program, and hence no copyright infringement has occurred (except in the case where the traced outline happens to be identical to the original, right down to the last hint -- but the chances of that happening are so small as to be negligible).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
It's good to see someone who TRULY understands something about typography... :) :) :)
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Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
That's exactly what happened with the telephone. And because of it, Alexander Graham Bell made a fortune, and 'that other guy' (I can never remember his name) lapsed into obscurity.
Patents don't cause trouble just in the software world. They're a two-edged sword.
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Yes. The LaserWriter II family had TrueType fonts and a TrueType rasterizer in ROM.
How exactly does LinuxPPC help Apple?
This would also boost their popularity a bit if they did do such a thing.
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Life is short, Play hard.... ow.. stich in my side! stich in my side!
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
> Since xfstt is working so great for me. Why, bother worrying about freetype?
xfstt is based on FreeType
Yeah, yeah, yeah ... First Post!
I probably blew it 'cause I took so long to type this.
The rasterizer was written in postscript...that's why in some printer dialogs you could check the "Download TrueType Rasterizer" box.
Even though we were a Mac based print shop, we discouraged the use of True Type. It's fine for laser printers but it starts to exhibit jaggies at high resolutions (imagesetters running at > 2000 dpi). Type 1 fonts don't do this.
For example, someone mentioned to me that Corel, when in need of fonts, simply wrote a font-copier, and created a whole new set of fonts with different names.
Great irony would exist if we could have all the fonts in the world, but have to pay money to look at them. Apple walks a tightrope with this one, and they know it.
In reality, they cannot truely block the usage of truetype fonts, or block the software necessary for using it. One can post source code, and indicate that it's usage may be illegal in any particular country; Apple condemning such code's existence would simply put it into the outreaches of the law.
They are, in effect, powerless to really do anything against those who really want truetype fonts. But for those who are not willing to go around the world searching for a TT renderer, Apple could detriment it's usage in, for example, XFree86 4.
The best Apple can do is destroy the mainstream distribution. But the possibility does not exist that they can even dent the background distribution of covert software, in my humble but correct opinion. Those that will pay for Apple's restrictions, should they be placed on Truetype, would be the users just starting with Linux.
It is also a concern as to how Corel will play a part in this, being a font giant itself, and self proclaimed Linux advocate.
_God_, you're cool.
Well... how? :-)
Where should I copy the ttf-fonts?
Anything else?
I hate pixmap fonts. It would be very nice if Apple let XFree86 use TrueType.
Perhaps it is time to ask SGI to be so kind as to donate their vector based graphical technology and help Linux encorperate it and make it standard. Then we really wouldn't have to worry too much about fonts and scalability. Vector based fonts are much nicer than TrueType fonts.
Until then lets hope Apple decides to play well with others.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
It seems that moving servers and maintainership outside the us migjht not be an optimal solution since it would prevent the major distros - RedHat, Suse, Caldera, and anyone else that bundles patent-infringing software from including it in US-distributed versions, based on earlier points in this discussion.
Let's hope Apple puts their money where their mouth is WRT OSS and licenses the technology gratis to Freetype, xfstt, etc.
I'm surprised I haven't heard of Apple doing anything negative with the patent in an attempt to hurt Microsoft, considering how often they're used in Windows...
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Paranoid
Paranoid
Bwaahahahahaa.
Until around the mid 70's, IIRC, software patents were automatically disallowed. That was a bit worse than optimum. OTOH, I think that it may be the best choice, because there aren't any competent patent clerks (i.e., patent clerks competent to judge which processes are either a) obvious or b) prior art). This puts all users at a severe risk of patent suits. If you keep a stable of lawyers in house, this isn't too severe a threat, as you can prove most of those pieces of garbage invalid with only a few ten's of thousands of dollars, and a few person months of lawyer time. For the individual software developer however...
Software patents offer us nothing! Software patents put us at constant risk! They are vile, evil, etc.
Now a good case could be made that certain carefully selected pieces of code actually deserve a software patent. Unfortunately, those pieces are so swallowed in a vast sea of trivially obvious tricks or prior art that it becomes nearly impossible to select them. And one is at nearly as much risk (or, sometimes, even more) over invalid patents as over valid ones: What percentage of developers can afford to defend in court against a claimed infringement?
WRT this particular case: I haven't studied whether or not Apple should be granted a patent on the TrueType code. It is enough that they have one, and I couldn't defend myself against them. The strong right arm carries the day.
I find this to be a clear witness to our current judicial system's origin in the midieval Trial By Combat (of selected champions).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This kind of hair-splitting argument does not enamour me of the Patent Law. It rather argues for the repeal of the entire system (perhaps to replace it with something at least a little more sensible).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Redhat has a nice article on truetype support in Redhat 6.0 at their website in their knowledge base. Here is the url http://www.redhat.com/knowledgeb ase/newfontsystem/
This is the page that helped me setup my truetype fonts.
Use a font server like xfstt. Verdana is a good choice for netscape. Now you can actually read smaller print.
Considering that Apple has been patenting technologies since the late 70's, it would be quite surprising if they had suddenly forgotten how to correctly file for a patent.
Apple DID pay Xerox.
- Diskspace is cheap, compression is fast
- X can use font servers, font servers can be in some place US patents don't apply
The first means that it may soon be possible to "use" TrueType by pre-rendering the small point sizes that benefit from moving control points and store them in some format similar to Type1 bitmap fonts, including things like leadings and real kerning info for that point size, and then use the renderer to render the outlines for bigger point sizes without using the patented features.This has the added benefit that "hinting" bitmaps can is easy to distribute between a lot of developers on the internet
The second means that you can keep your font server in some patent-free zone and use just the result of using the patent - afaik the patent protection does not extend to products that are manufactured using patented technologies.
In Apple's case, it looks like they missed the one year deadline. They published the TrueType specification and software using it circa 1990, but didn't file for their patents until 2 years later.
This is the second time this has been claimed, but nobody has provided the relevant patent numbers or provided any evidence. Could we have them, please?
I.
You know Gates isn't going to allow that to happen? Although if it did, we could benefit a great deal.
Don't mean to be pessimistic, but....
Programmer
Here's how I did it:
- Grab a copy of the FreeType font server here (for linux/x86 w/glibc2), h ere (for solaris/SPARC) or here (patch to XFree sources -- not for the faint of heart).
- Put the xfsft executable somewhere in your $PATH.
- Get a directory full of TT fonts. I have a directory on my Linux partition full of symlinks to
/dosc/windows/fonts/*.ttf, for example. /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/tt is not a bad place. - Run the ttinst script in that directory; this will create a fonts.scale file.
- ln -s fonts.scale fonts.dir
- echo "catalogue=/usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/tt" >
/usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/tt/xfsft.conf - Add the following to your
.xinitrc:
And you're set!xfsft -port 7100 -config /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/tt/xfsft.conf
sleep 1 # Give xfsft a chance to start up
xset +fp tcp/127.0.0.1:7100
xset fp rehash
Steve 'Nephtes' Freeland | Okay, so maybe I'm a tiny itty
I have Mandrake 6.0 which comes with xfs and a ttfonts directory. How does this compare to the xfsft mentioned above? I tried adding some *.ttf files to the ttfonts directory and running /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart, but the fonts still aren't available.
Does anyone know where the documentation on using True Type fonts with Mandrake is? Or should I just uninstall xfs and follow the directions above for installing xfsft?
re: "If I wanted to pay for software I would use Micro$haft Winblow$."
That isn't my reason for switching to Linux.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Clear type is a form of rendering, and MS might have a bit of a problem with enforcing their patent on that one since that technology was designed by Steve Woz. back in the early days with the original Apple, and it was open sourced. Tough break for bill on that one.
AFAIK, most RedHat 6.0-based distros (including the orginal RedHat 6.0), include Enlightenment which requires FreeType to render truetype fonts in ethemes.
FreeType does a great job -- you can see it's excellent anti-alaising work in the e.theme Hand of God.
For full documentation see the FreeType documentation.
Just to follow-up on my above post, Apple did NOT miss the deadline.
The date of filing was May 9, 1989. They published the specification (according to your information) in 1990, about three years later.
I.
Metafont predates these patent applications by at least 3 years and looks (to me) like it effectively covers all the claims.
What will they rethink of next?
The Laserwriter II series, introduced in January 1988, had TrueType support.
xfsft -port 7100 -config /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts/tt/xfsft.conf &
Without that ampersand, X would never get past that line to the rest of the script.
Steve 'Nephtes' Freeland | Okay, so maybe I'm a tiny itty
The LaserWriter II, introduced in January 1988, had TrueType support. Sorry for any confusion I created with earlier vague dates.
Considering that every single person who owns a computer (at least Intel based) now a days is sure to have paid the Microsoft Tax on at least one of them, everyone already paid for all the TrueType fonts in Windows -- so just use those. I know I personally paid for at least four different copies of Windows - but only "actively" use two -- one on my wife's computer and one in a vmware session...
This is one of those cases where it might be nice to block out a specific IP address, since this guy has been doing this stuff all over Slashdot. Or, at least we could get some moderators to moderate this stuff down to -10^100 or so.
I can't elaborate much, but IIRC, it first appeared in a book called "Tex and MetaFont" by Knuth (don't know the date or publisher). It was about how to create mathematically defined fonts for publishing documents (quite awhile before postscript).
Whether that it means that all of these various patent claims are invalidated by prior art? IANAL! (Also, I've never actually read the book.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Yes, you can use Ghostscript, a free implementation of desktop postscript (tm) for Unix-like OS's (and Windows / Mac -- but it's uncommon), to display anti-aliased postscript fonts on the screen.
The biggest problems with desktop postscript (tm), is it can be sluggish on some machines, and that free postscript fonts are rarer then plain old TrueType fonts that everyone uses and that finally many postscript fonts and/or desktop postscript have all kinds of legal issues involved.
But at any rate, the last time I checked, the GIMP 1.1.x has excellent support for anti-aliased postscript fonts, as does xpdf, KDE postscript viewer app and gv. More apps are on there way, I am sure....
d
Large font files. Slow font loads. RAM hog. etc. Outside of that, not a bad idea.
Personally, my choice would be to define a character in a font as a catenation of bezier (sp?) curves. There should be lots of curve drawing code available, and catenation isn't hard: Just define the top of letter to bottom of letter as one unit (or 1000 or 1023 or ?? [if you don't want to deal with floats]) set hScale = vScale, define the bounding box, define the centers of each curve, etc.
But there's lots of detail work. Creating each good looking font is loads of work. Defining an API that existing programs can use is a bear. etc.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hmmmmm. I'm not a moderator, but perhaps there should be a "DIE THREAD DIE" option. Or some other restriction on obvious cascades, which seem to be either
a) two camps with immutable and opposing opinions battling each other on an issue, or
b) (today at least) pointless content-free cascades.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
At a guess, then you mean ~1979 (based on MetaFont being MF78), and the publisher was probably Addison-Wesley (I think that they did the TeXbook and a few other of Knuth's books).
What I was asking about was concrete points to contest the patent on -- "A bit is from this bit of software, a bit from that, and a few thingies here and there, and sorta this, and that, and it is a nice day today" doesn't really stand up in court
John
John_Chalisque
Just fix Xfree so it can browse a directory of random fonts and name them, and then have each app be able to use them. If T1 font support was complete, this would be a nonissue.
GIMP is about the only app that can use added fonts. Applix, WP, NS all have their own systems. Ugh.
Another advantage to using a font server is that it keeps the X server from coming to a griding halt when it needs to render a font with many glyphs. Ever click on one of those eastern fonts with a zillion different characters in it?
Even small fonts take a while to render on a 386 or 486 X terminal, so the concurrency provided by a separate font server is highly desirable there.
Why not just convert TrueType fonts to a format similar to TrueType, but which is not TrueType? To do the conversion, render the fonts into a memory buffer at 1000 points with no anti-aliasing, trace around the edges, record the key points, and save them as "vector" graphics. Then use the anti-aliasing feature of FreeType to render the fonts. The font binaries would come out much larger, but since the patented portion (the TrueType rendering engine) would be almost eliminated, there would be no more problem with Apple.
Of course, we're all jumping to conclusions here and maybe, just maybe, Apple will give FreeType their blessing. It seems to me that Apple would benefit the most just by requiring a small notice to be displayed whenever the FreeType engine is used. It would be healthy for the religious movement they have built.
I've been using xfstt for years. You don't need to hope for anything as regards true type fonts. I hear xfstt took some brilliant programming to pull off but the solution isn't always the most hyped.
As the Xfstt maintainer I thought I should post a
note. I was informed of this patent a few weeks
ago but hadn't had a chance to really look at
it beyond a quick glance.
Suposedly it only covers "hinting". Someone
had said to me that prior art almost definitly exists (going back to the egyptions and the
ancient greeks no less).
It was also pointed out that Apple has never
pressed this issue with anyone. I have been to
busy lately to figure out how/if to respond to
this problem.
As it is now I plan to release xfstt 1.0 within
a few days (no major changes since the last one..
just a few minor fixes and updates that make
things a bit more polished).
If Apple isn't enforcing the patent...then might
as well let sleeping dogs lie. At worst it can
be moved to servers and maintainership outside
of the non-free world.
-- Steve
Get yer TrueType converters here...
Could you elaborate?
John
John_Chalisque
I agree about SGI's fonts - I think SGI's fonts are roughly comparable in quality to Apple's fonts, with Microsoft's fonts trailing them. Of course, Linux font technology trails even Microsoft's :-(.
SGI's fonts are a major reason I still use a 1994 Indigo2 running Irix instead of Linux as my workstation. I find it much more comfortable to read stuff.
D
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> With so many knock-off "sound-alike fonts" (for example, 3 fonts named Tech, Technical and > Architect that all look the same), how do you know which is the "original"? There are a very few number of people who are professional typeface designers are they would know all the history behind this.
> With so many knock-off "sound-alike fonts" (for example, 3 fonts named Tech, Technical and
> Architect that all look the same), how do you know which is the "original"?
There are a very few number of people who are professional typeface designers are they would know all the history behind this.
1st : learn to spell, go to school, it's free 2nd : Apple owns the patents to the way the font is drawn on screen . TrueType fonts are not groups of pictures of letters, they are mathematical operations of how they should be drawn, to allow them to be scaled and modified (bold, italic, etc)
Don't take my word for it, take Microsoft's:
http://www.microsoft.com/true type/history/history.htm
A brief history of TrueType
The TrueType digital font format was originally designed by Apple Computer, Inc. It was a means of avoiding per-font royalty payments to the owners of other font technologies, and a solution to some of the technical limitations of Adobe's Type 1 format. Originally code named "Bass" (because these were scalable fonts and you can scale a fish), and later "Royal", the TrueType format was designed to be efficient in storage and processing, and extensible. It was also built to allow the use of hinting approaches already in use in the font industry as well as the development of new hinting techniques, enabling the easy conversion of already existing fonts to the TrueType format. This degree of flexibility in TrueType's implementation of hinting makes it extremely powerful when designing characters for display on the screen. Microsoft had also been looking for an outline format to solve similar problems, and Apple agreed to license TrueType to Microsoft. Apple included full TrueType support in its Macintosh operating system, System 7, in May 1990. Its more recent development efforts include TrueType GX, which extends the TrueType format as part of the new graphics architecture QuickDraw GX for the MacOS. TrueType GX includes some Apple-only extensions to the font format, supporting Style Variations and the Line Layout Manager. Microsoft first included TrueType in Windows 3.1, in April 1991. Soon afterwards, Microsoft began rewriting the TrueType rasterizer to improve its efficiency and performance and remove some bugs (while maintaining compatibility with the earlier version). The new TrueType rasterizer, version 1.5, first shipped in Windows NT 3.1. There have since been some minor revisions, and the version in Windows 95 and NT 3.51 is version 1.66. The new capabilities include enhanced features such as font smoothing (or more technically, grayscale rasterization). Microsoft's ongoing development effort includes the TrueType Open specification. TrueType Open will work on any Microsoft platform and Apple Macintosh machine, and includes features to allow multi-lingual typesetting and fine typographic control.
At least some part of this discussion is getting the facts right.
:)
Apple and MS were pissed at Adobe. Apple had TrueType and MS had a
PostScript interpreter. They did a deal. Apple lost out
MS still use the PostScript interpreter to support Macintosh printing in NT.
Strange. You use the "open standard" in a open source like context. And give M$ credit for being so "open" with their standard (Yet, this is clearly a Apple technology or M$ forgot to trademark it, so Apple was able to "steal" the trademark). Then you go on to slam "Red$at and $u$£" (as you put it) for charging for free stuff. Well, I ask you if M$ is so "open" and developed TrueType where can download the source on M$'s ftp site. Last I checked, although "Red$at and $u$£" charges for CDs, the complete source is freely available on their ftp servers! Wait...was that Gates posting?
http://www.mackido.com/History/History_TT.html
Read up here, especially for those of you who believe Microsoft invented TT. Basically, it was Apple's response to Adobe's Postscript, which Adobe wasn't letting Apple develop for their own technology. TT became the foundation for QuickDraw GX. MS had indeed made something called TrueImage, but it died of uselessness, and they licensed TT from Apple.
M$, to their credit, now acknowledge Apple created TrueType:. htm
...which apparently when David Every wrote the TT article on MacKiDo, they didn't. There's also the MS standard "ClearType"a ult.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/truetype/history/history
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/def
which was released last year at Comdex. I haven't heard about it since.
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
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Hey, Microsoft invented TrueType! Why is Apple involved???
Exactly! This is why industrial processes are often covered by trade secret, not by patent. The whole point of patents is to encourage the making public of innovations, with the time-limited monopoly on the idea granted as the reward for making public something which a person (or corp) could have kept secret as long as feasible. (Whether the current US patent system actually serves that purpose today is a different question ...)
I know of at least one instance of a patentable industrial process that was held as trade secret instead. The reasoning? To patent it would allow my competitors to use this idea. They could violate the patent and I would never know. I don't intend to sell this idea, I just plan to use it to make my real product more efficiently. Therefore, there is no benefit and probable harm to my business by pursuing a patent.
This same company, however, seems to be aggressive about obtaining patents on improvents to their manufactured end product themselves. In that case, if they incorporate an innovation into their product without securing patent protection, all their competitors would have to do is to duplicate the innovation without incurring the research costs and risks themselves. So patents make sense in those cases.
oo
> Microsoft has been somewhat generous and made a few commonly used typefaces available for limited
> distribution at no cost.
Their free fonts are of no use to most of us. I believe they are specifically licensed for use on Windows only, and they may not be redistributed-- thus, you couldn't include them on your Linux CD; you'd have to ask everybody to download them from Microsoft's site, decompress them (which will be a pain if you don't have Windows because they are distributed as self-decompressing Windows executables), and then figure out how to install them in a usable form.
-Sigh- Apple invented TrueType and began using it around 1988 so they could break free from the Adobe stronghold on Type1/PS. In a cross licensing deal, Microsoft was able to use TT, and Apple was able to use some Microsoft technologies. At least Apple hasn't cross licensed Quicktime... yet. (Though it would be nice if I could play those Sorensen-compressed QT4 movies on my linux box...)
f
Ummm. I don't know quite how to respond to that, other than to say that YES, Apple developed TrueType. Microsoft licensed it from them for Windows 3.1, and has used it since then, but Apple did develop it. I'm not sure exactly how "open" a standard it is, because Apple expects a licensing fee to use their TrueType stuff... I dunno if a cleanroom implementation like FreeType gets by that tho. (I hope so...)
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Sub-pixel rendering has been around for a long time. Microsoft didn't invent it.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Just because you are using them now (as I am), doesn't mean you aren't infringing on Apple's patents.
Two flies in the ointment; I can't remember if this is in relation to trademarks or patents; I could, however, imagine similar laws applying to the two. Secondly, to fight Apple in the courts would require a fair bit of money which I would imagine the Freetype authors don't have (they certainly couldn't afford legal advice on the patents, according to the web page).
In any case, I hope Apple allows the continued use of truetype fonts for no charge. *crosses fingers*
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Typical Knee-jerk reaction that I've come to expect from Slashdot posters
So I'll be skeptical of this claim unless I see some hard evidence.
LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs
From xfstt's included FAQ:
4.3 Why another free ttf font server?
Xfstt was actually the first free truetype font server. It was written from scratch, the useful freetype library not being ready in early 1997.
Perhaps you're thinking of xfsft?
Actually, try running unzip on them anyway...most of the time the self-extracting exe files are just zip files with a small unzip program attached to the header. unzip should be smart enough to ignore that part. It works for me.
can you say compuserve trying to rob people of $$$ after .gif got popular. sneaky tactic.
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Drgnmstr@Netspace.org (who forgot his password) Apple invented TrueType. Microsoft licensed it from Apple. Also it wasn't available until Windows 3.1, it was not in any prior edition. Before you flame people here, get your facts straight.
These fonts were created by Monotype and are superbly hinted for display at low resolutions. They are freely available for use (with some restrictions on distribution).
Hint: if you don't have access to a Windows machine for running the self-installing executable download the "Windows 16 bit" versions which are actually self-extracting zips. Info-zip can handle them. Links to the fonts are here
BTW - The x font server which comes with Red Hat 6.0 supports TrueType.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I suppose you also think Win95 was the first version.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
I downloaded xfstt just to discover that Red Hat 6.0 already supports TrueType.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
While not necessarily related to this patent. What are the possibilities of suing both the PTO and the individal examiner(s).
Imagine if you got a patent overturned, being able to turn around a sue the PTO and examiner(s) to recover legal fees and damages. I'm sure this would cut down on the volume of bogus patents being granted and filed for.
Also, wasn't the PTO semi-privatived and gets all it's funding through the fees associated with filings? If that is indeed the case the institutional incentive is to make it easy to get a patent and drive up the number of filings.
If I wanted to pay for software I would use Micro$haft Winblow$.
Just to clarify what I said - binary font files are distributed under a software licence (GPL, MS EULA, X, etc.), just like any other software. The actual art design of the font can't be copyrighted however.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
While having a TrueType font rendering system sounds great and all, there don't appear to be any free TrueType fonts which are all that much better than their T1 counterparts.
Good TrueType fonts are typically manually hinted. Also, each style of the font such as italic, bold, and bold italic are individual fonts instead of having the font renderer try to fake it.
This results in a much cleaner, crisper font than what you get from using one of the many font creation programs out there.
Unfortunately, the skill involved in creating manually hinted fonts doesn't come cheap and while individual fonts can't be patented, they can be copywrited.
Microsoft has been somewhat generous and made a few commonly used typefaces available for limited distribution at no cost. I believe these include Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana and Courier, which is really all you need 99% of the time.
The exception being menus and what not, these typically use a font specially created for small labels. I believe MS uses MS Sans Serif for this.
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The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
begone troll!
Will X pick up sub-pixel aliasing (a.k.a. "ClearType")? Sub-pixel aliasing is supposed to be the Next Big Thing in font rendering (of course it currently only works on LCDs...)
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is not ironic: individual fonts ARE protected, just under a different intellectual property category. You cannot patent a font, because a font is not an invention - it is a creative expression. Creative expression is protected by copyright law. A "font system" is in the nature of an invention. Neither can you copyright a font system - a system is just an well -defined idea, reproducible and having a pre-determined result (i.e. the processing, formatting and display of fonts).
Neither patent nor copyright are inherently weaker or stronger forms of legal protection - they are just different, mutually exclusive catetories. One does not belong in the other.
Furthermore, there is no question of whether it's legal to USE or LOOK AT a font - they are copyrighted: protection is, again, against copying, not use.
I.
Does that not mean that anyone who legally bought a copy of this software can use the library, even if the _distribution_ of it was illegal...
Or not.
I didn't use a '-' though...
What's that? I personally prefer 'Linsux'.
props to you. you have mad lyrical skillz.
yay!
Make a directory to put the ttf files (/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/truetype will do) In that directory run: ttmkfdir > fonts.dir chkfontpath --add {directory] restart xfs: /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart start X
I believe The Onion says it best:
You are dumb.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= John Reinert Nash -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Of course there are plenty of free TT fonts. If anyone out there ever used a damn search engine they would find more they anyone could desire.
:P
First off, check with the experts on what looks good. And one of those people in the Linux world is Tigert. His webpage is tigert.gimp.org and it's pretty clean and simple. Look under Misc. Links and you will find several really great pages to get great looking TT fonts. Especially, that AcidFonts page.
If you want more after that then you are just nuts.
And if you want tt fonts in Linux. Just grab xfstt and install it. It literally takes something like 5 minutes. No fuss, no muss, it's just all good. For those of you that still don't believe in search engines. Go to freshmeat.net and use it's little search function. It will point you right to it.
And for a quick question. Since xfstt is working so great for me. Why, bother worrying about freetype?
What's the situation, say, in Brazil? Argentina? Australia? Do they have the same stupid patent laws? Or some stupid agreement with the states?
Must be a boring day at microsoft
What kind of true type support will be in XFree4? Will it be able to serve antialiased true type (or type 1) fonts out of the box?
Apple's three patents on TrueType are invalid, because they forfeited their patent rights by failing to file for a patent within one year of publishing documents and software containg the patented technologies.
Nah, just takes a bigger bat.
It's kind of funny that Apple has a patant on true type.. What makes it pantable?? People have been using picuture letters way before apple came out on the scene. Think about ransom notes! I wonder when someone will claim they have the patent of fonts in general. But looking at what Apple has been doing lately, I feel they are trying to make it anyway they can, becuase the fact that the have lost alot of ground on everything they did. But that points out that they do things in a manor to make more money, not that it's sensable.
-Ellis of Geeknews.com
Speaking about copying fonts, something that has always bugged me...
With so many knock-off "sound-alike fonts" (for example, 3 fonts named Tech, Technical and Architect that all look the same), how do you know which is the "original"?
I have always been looking for some sort of list so I can be sure to have the "true" fonts instead of all the cheap copies. Sometimes the shoddy copying is obvious but my eye is not so sharp to detect them all...
I would love to have some resource to filter the authetic fonts from the fakes.
Why would you say such a thing ?