Consider the following task: Fetch the glyph for the letter 'S', convert it to a bezier path, shear it by 0.3, 0.4. Set this stroke as a clipping path. Next, render the word "Linux rulez", scaled by 2.0/2.0, applying a a gaussian blur kernel to the output (for dropshadow). Next, re render the text with a radial gradient fill overtop of the background. Finally, fetch a penguin icon and render it overtop of the 'I' of the text with 0.3 alpha. Of course, all this must be antialiased and rendered pixel perfect. Next, render this in a variety of output formats including:
grayscale
monochrome (1-bit)
ARGB
BGR
palette mapped
This is a very insightful post. And you're right, libart goes nowhere near this in functionality. Nor can the client-side anti-aliasing support in GNOME be really said to compete with NeXT's and Adobe's old display postscript, nor with their new Display PDF.
As others have pointed out, this stuff must be in the X server (display server) since to be effective it should be hardware accelerated. The only project which comes near this is GNUStep with Aladdin's Display Ghostscript project. If I remember correctly, the DGS will be an X server extension for the client side widget libraries, so for those X servers with DGS support GNUStep will have hardware accelerated Display Ghostscript -- just what you seem to require.
Of course, the GNUStep project has taken a long time to mature... but they seem to be nearing completion of their core libaries and DGS code, leaving application support left. Since their libraries are close enough to MacOS X and the old OpenStep specification it should be fairly easy to port between the two.
I like GNOME a bunch, but honestly I loved my old NeXT CUBE a whole bunch more. I'll happily buy a PowerMac G4 if MacOS X turns out as nicely as my old CUBE did...
Finally, RE: junking X altogether instead of extending the X prototcol... I'm in favor of keeping X and just extending the protocol. We have such a large application base locked up in X that to toss X would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. X is crufty, and could use a core protocol update, but it's also still good enough for most every day work. We need to either update the protocol (yeah right, like the Open Group is going to bother), or extend it server side.
I'm under the impression that the XFree86 team is having some legal (patent) issues about including TrueType support directly in the newer XFree 4 X server, which is why they're going to only support TrueType font servers. If this is true, then that's another good argument for pursuing a Display Ghostscript model and dumping TrueType support altogether.
Public domain software has been around as long as computers have. Linux could have made it as public domain software, the same people who gave their work away to make it work would still have done so, even if perhaps some horribly evil corporation might have made the terrible sin of improving their own products with chunks of Linux-related code (I know, I know, none of us could have slept knowing that MS used Linux code to make a better Windows and the Linux community's work improved the lives of most users years ago, instead of just the cherished hacker elite; after all, it's not about helping people, it's about rebellion and communism and programmers making as little as street musicians).
I made this very same point in a comment in "Photogenics To Be Released For Linux" There is nothing about the GPL or Free Software which relates to Communism! If that were the case you should call the pope Communist for redistributing the wealth of donations given to the church for the needy. Or for that matter, you should call those Shriners, driving their petit cars around collecting money for burn victims "Communist." Bullshit!
Communism is a political ideology, and has nothing to do with non-political groups of people organizing together for common cause and purpose. To call RMS a Communist is to promote Fascism. Why? Because that is state sponsored and controlled Capitalism! And I'm guessing that if Free Software, The Shriners, and the Church are considered Communist because members of such share ideas and wealth, then we've just stepped down the sliperly slope toward enacting state sponsored criminalization of such activity. And that IS fascism.
BTW, how did this completely off-topic post get moderated to the top of this discussion? Not a single mention of "if I had to pay for Linux" or "if I couldn't get the source", just an apparently random tribute to a prominent figure in the world of free software.
It's obvious to me, though not directly stated: If Linux hadn't been released under the GPL, but had been released under something close to the Minux license, it would have whithered on the vine while the BSD's and GNU grew up to take it's place today. We would still have Free Software, and Linux would be an unknown afterthought.
Remember these bad things about proprietary operating systems:
The user is at the mercy of the vendor for bug fixes
The user is at the mercy of the vendor for continued development
The user is at the mercy of the vendor for support
The user cannot use the software however he/she wishes; he/she must use it within the confines of the EULA
The user cannot share the software with others
Of course, given my title, I completely agree with your assessment. In the long run users would be far better off sending a $100 donation to the GIMP developers than paying this guy's lunch, no matter how well written is his software. The folks who complain about lacking features they want in GIMP, but who have never donated time or effort themselves, simply don't understand the point -- collective sharing of intellectual property across an open playing field is an inherently stronger model for the creation, distribution and development of new ideas. This is why science, using open data and publication among its peers, has flourished since the enlightenment. If the church had successfully maintained it's monopoly over ideas and content we'd still be driving horse and ox plows... and we'd all believe the Earth is the center of the universe under threat of excommunication and death.
Today's intellectual monopolists lack that kind of centralized political power, but it's the same tools, the same goals, and the same short sighted gains which drive these monopolists. Their only weapon against Free Software proponents is communist propaganda... our best weapon is price and intellectual freedom.
To call the free software movement communist is to call the church, or any other non-political organization created for the primary purpose of sharing goods and services collectively, communist as well. Can you imagine the pope called a communist because he redistributed money collected from church donations to the poor? Yeah, that's the logic commercial propagandists would have us believe when it comes to giving away freedom with intellectual property. Don't buy it, write it!
Finally, concerning your lament on the quality of Slashdot moderation lately: I agree completely. I notice you have fairly high karma points, yet you haven't been moderated up at all. I bet this is a new trait... I've noticed many well written posts completely ignored lately while trite childish posts get moderated up to a five simply because they preset popular views. I think this is because Rob Malda has opened up moderation to the large community, and as it turns out, the greater Slashdot community is made up mostly of young men in their late teens and early twenties. These folks don't seem to care much for grammar, diversity, or even much about intellectual content. They do care about k-rad hackers, Mandrake, and "Buffer Overflows," but probably wouldn't understand a top down stack if it hit them over the head.
Second problem: everyone is jumping over themselves to post quickly, and moderate quickly, so that the time taken to write a quality post gets lost in the noise. I think Rob should consider preventing moderation on a new topic for the first thirty minutes or an hour. This allows content to filter in before the moderators jump the gun.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahhhh, now it all makes sense...
As others have pointed out, this stuff must be in the X server (display server) since to be effective it should be hardware accelerated. The only project which comes near this is GNUStep with Aladdin's Display Ghostscript project. If I remember correctly, the DGS will be an X server extension for the client side widget libraries, so for those X servers with DGS support GNUStep will have hardware accelerated Display Ghostscript -- just what you seem to require.
Of course, the GNUStep project has taken a long time to mature... but they seem to be nearing completion of their core libaries and DGS code, leaving application support left. Since their libraries are close enough to MacOS X and the old OpenStep specification it should be fairly easy to port between the two.
I like GNOME a bunch, but honestly I loved my old NeXT CUBE a whole bunch more. I'll happily buy a PowerMac G4 if MacOS X turns out as nicely as my old CUBE did...
Finally, RE: junking X altogether instead of extending the X prototcol... I'm in favor of keeping X and just extending the protocol. We have such a large application base locked up in X that to toss X would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. X is crufty, and could use a core protocol update, but it's also still good enough for most every day work. We need to either update the protocol (yeah right, like the Open Group is going to bother), or extend it server side.
I'm under the impression that the XFree86 team is having some legal (patent) issues about including TrueType support directly in the newer XFree 4 X server, which is why they're going to only support TrueType font servers. If this is true, then that's another good argument for pursuing a Display Ghostscript model and dumping TrueType support altogether.
Cheers,
Xlib
It's factually correct and the author has rebutted all claims to the contrary.
I don't read any flame baiting in the message.
It's completely on topic.
It certainly wasn't redundant.
What is wrong with this moderators, do you dislike the content? That's NOT a good excuse!
Xlib
NOT. Scatological humor is lower than puns on the comedy scale. Hmmph!
Xlib
Public domain software has been around as long as computers have. Linux could have made it as public domain software, the same people who gave their work away to make it work would still have done so, even if perhaps some horribly evil corporation might have made the terrible sin of improving their own products with chunks of Linux-related code (I know, I know, none of us could have slept knowing that MS used Linux code to make a better Windows and the Linux community's work improved the lives of most users years ago, instead of just the cherished hacker elite; after all, it's not about helping people, it's about rebellion and communism and programmers making as little as street musicians).
I made this very same point in a comment in "Photogenics To Be Released For Linux" There is nothing about the GPL or Free Software which relates to Communism! If that were the case you should call the pope Communist for redistributing the wealth of donations given to the church for the needy. Or for that matter, you should call those Shriners, driving their petit cars around collecting money for burn victims "Communist." Bullshit!
Communism is a political ideology, and has nothing to do with non-political groups of people organizing together for common cause and purpose. To call RMS a Communist is to promote Fascism. Why? Because that is state sponsored and controlled Capitalism! And I'm guessing that if Free Software, The Shriners, and the Church are considered Communist because members of such share ideas and wealth, then we've just stepped down the sliperly slope toward enacting state sponsored criminalization of such activity. And that IS fascism.
BTW, how did this completely off-topic post get moderated to the top of this discussion? Not a single mention of "if I had to pay for Linux" or "if I couldn't get the source", just an apparently random tribute to a prominent figure in the world of free software.
It's obvious to me, though not directly stated: If Linux hadn't been released under the GPL, but had been released under something close to the Minux license, it would have whithered on the vine while the BSD's and GNU grew up to take it's place today. We would still have Free Software, and Linux would be an unknown afterthought.
Xlib
- The user is at the mercy of the vendor for bug fixes
- The user is at the mercy of the vendor for continued development
- The user is at the mercy of the vendor for support
- The user cannot use the software however he/she wishes; he/she must use it within the confines of the EULA
- The user cannot share the software with others
Of course, given my title, I completely agree with your assessment. In the long run users would be far better off sending a $100 donation to the GIMP developers than paying this guy's lunch, no matter how well written is his software. The folks who complain about lacking features they want in GIMP, but who have never donated time or effort themselves, simply don't understand the point -- collective sharing of intellectual property across an open playing field is an inherently stronger model for the creation, distribution and development of new ideas. This is why science, using open data and publication among its peers, has flourished since the enlightenment. If the church had successfully maintained it's monopoly over ideas and content we'd still be driving horse and ox plows... and we'd all believe the Earth is the center of the universe under threat of excommunication and death.Today's intellectual monopolists lack that kind of centralized political power, but it's the same tools, the same goals, and the same short sighted gains which drive these monopolists. Their only weapon against Free Software proponents is communist propaganda... our best weapon is price and intellectual freedom.
To call the free software movement communist is to call the church, or any other non-political organization created for the primary purpose of sharing goods and services collectively, communist as well. Can you imagine the pope called a communist because he redistributed money collected from church donations to the poor? Yeah, that's the logic commercial propagandists would have us believe when it comes to giving away freedom with intellectual property. Don't buy it, write it!
Finally, concerning your lament on the quality of Slashdot moderation lately: I agree completely. I notice you have fairly high karma points, yet you haven't been moderated up at all. I bet this is a new trait... I've noticed many well written posts completely ignored lately while trite childish posts get moderated up to a five simply because they preset popular views. I think this is because Rob Malda has opened up moderation to the large community, and as it turns out, the greater Slashdot community is made up mostly of young men in their late teens and early twenties. These folks don't seem to care much for grammar, diversity, or even much about intellectual content. They do care about k-rad hackers, Mandrake, and "Buffer Overflows," but probably wouldn't understand a top down stack if it hit them over the head.
Second problem: everyone is jumping over themselves to post quickly, and moderate quickly, so that the time taken to write a quality post gets lost in the noise. I think Rob should consider preventing moderation on a new topic for the first thirty minutes or an hour. This allows content to filter in before the moderators jump the gun.
Slashdot is getting badly broken lately.
Xlib