Freetype2

Paul Fernhout pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com
Fri Sep 1 13:09:31 UTC 2000


Marcus-

Thanks for pointing the new things going on at: http://www.freetype.org
These new changes remove any legal objections I had to using freetype in
Squeak.
(I don't know what technical or practical issues there may be...)

>From the Squeak license: "You may distribute and sublicense the Fonts
only as a part of and for use with Modified Software, and not as a part
of or for use with Modified Software that is distributed or sublicensed
for a fee or for other valuable consideration."

On a legal basis, IANAL but I believe the presence of the original Apple
fonts in Squeak is the only major thing that keeps the SqueakC image
from being used as the basis of a commercial product (such as in
shareware). There may be other practical issues related to events,
exception handling, and modularity (and legal issues with add-ons), but
this is the only issue that is specifically related to the original
license. Moving past this hurdle in the base image would be a major
milestone in Squeak history. Just think -- afterwards practically "out
of the box" anyone could then make a utility with Squeak and start
selling it (via say the shareware marketing method).

It's a seemingly minor thing to those Smalltalk Gurus out there who have
a complete knowledge of the Squeak image, but on a practical basis
removing binary objects from the image with legal certainty is not a job
to be taken on lightly.

It would obviously be a big stretch to interpret "distribute" and "for a
fee" as covering the public display of a product using Squeak at a
location where people pay money for entrance. But (to motivate SqueakC's
interest and desire to change the 2.9 image that is already out there on
servers) it is only a matter of time (I would think hopefully for
SqueakC) before Squeak technology makes its way into Disney products,
and the sooner replacement font stuff starts getting tested the better
for those future Disney products.
 
Does anyone else on this list think that removing the original Apple
fonts should be a priority for 2.9?

Does anyone have a specific piece of code that with 100% certainty rips
out the offending fonts from any Squeak image? 

When the font discussion came up last there were other font alternatives
as well -- but the big issue for me isn't at first to get more fonts, it
is to remove the problematical ones. "Nature abhors a vacuum", and once
the Apple fonts are gone in the official base image, I'm sure many new
fonts will rush in to fill the void.

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software 
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com


Marcus Denker wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> Some month ago there was a discussion about Freetype and the patent-issues.
> 
> Now a FreeType2 pre-release is available at http://www.freetype.org:
> 
>   Patents issues
> 
>   The FreeType 2 source code includes a TrueType bytecode interpreter that
>   is covered by the Apple patents.
>   However, this piece of code is never compiled by default in this release
>   (unlike in previous betas) making a default build of the library entirely
>   patent-free !!
> 
>   Supported font formats
> 
>   FreeType 2 readily supports the following font formats:
> 
>       -> TrueType files (.ttf) and collections (.ttc)
>       -> Type 1 font files both in ASCII (.pfa) or binary (.pfb) format
>       -> Type 1 Multiple Master fonts. The FreeType 2 API also provides
>          routines to manage design instances easily
>       -> Type 1 CID-keyed fonts
>       -> OpenType/CFF (.otf) fonts
>       -> CFF/Type 2 fonts
>       -> Adobe CEF fonts (.cef), used to embed fonts in SVG documents
>          with the Adobe SVG viewer plugin.
>       -> Windows FNT/FON bitmap fonts
> 
> --
> Marcus Denker marcus at ira.uka.de phone at home:(0721)6649375 @work:(0721)6082749
> Imitating paper on a computer screen is like tearing the wings off a 747 and
> using it as a bus on the highway. -- Ted Nelson





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