[Nix-dev] fonts: subpixel rendering

[Mathijs Kwik]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 10:36 PM, Eelco Dolstra <e.dolstra at tudelft.nl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 01/17/2012 10:14 PM, Sergey Mironov wrote:
>
>> So.. may I kindly ask to enable this option in nix and disable hinting
>> in the global fonts.conf by default?
>
> We can't really do that because subpixel rendering is covered by
> patents.  From the FreeType source code:
>
>   Note that this feature is covered by several Microsoft
>   patents and should not be activated in any default
>   build of the library.

Microsoft also claims that the linux kernel infringes on its patents.
Better take that out of nix as well then.

And while we're at it... ffmpeg and probably almost every video
related software infringes on a bunch of patents.

So where do you draw the line?
Not to mention the differences between countries, differences between
hosting and distributing software, and "loopholes" where source
distribution is OK, but binary form is not.

This particular case (subpixel rendering) isn't very important to me,
but in general I would hope choices are based on technological grounds
and not whether or not some US lawmaker thinks wget/curl facilitate
illegal downloads :)




>
> You could build FreeType with subpixel rendering and then include it in
> $LD_LIBRARY_PATH so that applications built against the stock FreeType
> library in Nixpkgs use it at runtime.
>
> --
> Eelco Dolstra | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/
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