Ship it with Squeak (Fonts)

Henrik Gedenryd Henrik.Gedenryd at lucs.lu.se
Tue Jun 27 07:46:44 UTC 2000


> I understand what you are saying. Still, out of caution, I think the
> existing fonts should go just to comply with what Apple might want to
> interpret. Sad though -- we're going through extra work and worry just
> to make a cross-platform system that makes the Mac platform more
> valuable as Squeak levels the playing field due to Apple legal
> worries... A method like "Smalltalk purgeAppleFonts" would be good. The
> things is, I don't even know which are the Apple fonts and which aren't.

It is (only) New York, which is unfortunately the standard one. The other
one, Comic Sans, is MS.

> Also, I think using MS fonts is asking for trouble no matter what the
> license.

I guess I agree. But note that there already is one in there. Although
there's a free license in their one hand, you never know what's in the other
hand behind their back.

> So, you're saying FreeType
> http://www.freetype.org/
> can be used to create bitmaps that are freely useable?
> Still has to be done though.

My plugin does that. There are some samples of such bitmaps in the same
directory.

Morphic vs. MVC is not really a problem--these are spiced up StrikeFonts
with deeper bit maps.

> Maybe we can just find the 1% of PD fonts that look nice? Of course,
> even if you find them you can't always be 100% sure of their true
> pedigree or whether the might violate someone's style patent or
> trademark or such.

Duh, I've _really_ tried, and I think I have most of it. None is a really
good, and I thought it would go best along with the other type improvements.
But look out for something related in a few days.

> Sounds like the patent issue makes it a non-starter for me until as you
> say a non-patented version become available... I'm at my IP limit
> deciding if distributing an IP product produced using unlicensed patents
> but not containing them is an IP violation. It certainly is a violation
> in the US for the one doing the converting where the infringement takes
> place. I wouldn't take the risk. Obviously, people in Europe can do so
> without worries. Whether I should then use the result is another story.
> 

If you are in a hurry, I could give you a newer version which also supports
PostScript outline fonts--this doesn't violate the patents as they apply to
TrueType only. I haven't released this yet as there are some other issues
that stand to be remedied as well, and the FT2 release is supposedly just
around the corner--well you know what that means :) :(


Henrik






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