Hey,

early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
and leaves other fonts alone.

Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.

Therefore, we decided to turn the bci off again until the necessary
changes are in place to use it only on fonts which benefit from it. This
change went into freetype-2.3.11-3.fc13.

If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...


Matthias

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Hey,

early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
and leaves other fonts alone.

Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.

Therefore, we decided to turn the bci off again until the necessary
changes are in place to use it only on fonts which benefit from it. This
change went into freetype-2.3.11-3.fc13.

If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...


Matthias

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On Wed, 2010-03-03 at 17:53 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...

Thanks for the heads up!

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Hi,

Will the bytecode interpreter in freetype be enabled for Fedora 14?

-Ilyes Gouta

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
> and leaves other fonts alone.
>
> Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
> doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
> fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.
>
> Therefore, we decided to turn the bci off again until the necessary
> changes are in place to use it only on fonts which benefit from it. This
> change went into freetype-2.3.11-3.fc13.
>
> If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...
>
>
> Matthias
>
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Hi,

Will the bytecode interpreter in freetype be enabled for Fedora 14?

-Ilyes Gouta

On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
> and leaves other fonts alone.
>
> Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
> doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
> fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.
>
> Therefore, we decided to turn the bci off again until the necessary
> changes are in place to use it only on fonts which benefit from it. This
> change went into freetype-2.3.11-3.fc13.
>
> If your fonts look subtly different tomorrow, this is why...
>
>
> Matthias
>
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On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat.com> wrote:

> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
> and leaves other fonts alone.

Are Xft/Cairo patched for ClearType ? <http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html>

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Matthias Clasen wrote:
> Hey,
>
> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
> and leaves other fonts alone.
>
> Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
> doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
> fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.

My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
all the bci stuff.

I understand that the target of these modifications is to have the bci
where available and the autohinter where bci info is missing.

Will there be an option to say "always use the autohinter?"?
If not, I would miss it badly.

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Hi Xoze,

ClearType is a tech. for subpixel rendering that targets LCD screens, isn't it?

Xft/Cairo patching is then a different feature for Fedora 14, than the
bci vm being turned on by default in FreeType.

Regards,
-Ilyes Gouta

On Sat, May 22, 2010 at 1:06 PM, Xose Vazquez Perez
<xose.vazquez@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 11:53 PM, Matthias Clasen <mclasen@redhat.com> wrote:
>
>> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
>> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
>> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
>> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
>> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
>> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
>> and leaves other fonts alone.
>
> Are Xft/Cairo patched for ClearType ? <http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html>
>
> --
> If less is more than more, most is more than less.
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Hi Roberto,

> My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
> all the bci stuff.

Mine tells a different story, especially when dealing with standard'
fonts such as Arial, Tahoma and even Courier New.

What I'd like to see is a true, fully featured font rendering
experience on the Linux desktop. Sadly, this goes through the bci
thing, a method for custom glyph control/reconstruction, which patents
expired recently.

-Ilyes Gouta

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Roberto Ragusa <mail@robertoragusa.it> wrote:
> Matthias Clasen wrote:
>> Hey,
>>
>> early in the F13 cycle, we enabled the bytecode interpreter in our
>> freetype package, since the patents on that have expired last fall.
>> Unfortunately, it turned out that many free fonts don't actually benefit
>> from this, and actually look worse with the bci. The reason for that is
>> that without the bci, freetype uses its autohinter on all fonts, but
>> with the bci turned on, it only applies hints to fonts which have them,
>> and leaves other fonts alone.
>>
>> Behdad investigated the situation, and we have a plan to fix this, but
>> doing it properly requires enhancements in multiple places (freetype,
>> fontconfig, pango), and will not be ready in time for F13.
>
> My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
> all the bci stuff.
>
> I understand that the target of these modifications is to have the bci
> where available and the autohinter where bci info is missing.
>
> Will there be an option to say "always use the autohinter?"?
> If not, I would miss it badly.
>
> --
> * Roberto Ragusa * *mail at robertoragusa.it
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Ilyes Gouta wrote:
> Hi Roberto,
>
>> My experience has always been that the autohinter is way better than
>> all the bci stuff.
>
> Mine tells a different story, especially when dealing with standard'
> fonts such as Arial, Tahoma and even Courier New.
>
> What I'd like to see is a true, fully featured font rendering
> experience on the Linux desktop. Sadly, this goes through the bci
> thing, a method for custom glyph control/reconstruction, which patents
> expired recently.

I'm well aware that many people have different tastes about font
readability and that I'm probably out of the majority (who
wants "like on Windows" rendering). This awareness was actually
the reason of my post: to have guys remember that not everyone
welcomes the bci.

I don't mind defaults, I just need a flag to switch it off
for me (with no recompilation).

I don't want to find myself in the position of cursing the
_expiration_ of a lame software patent. 8-)

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