Jan Engelhardt wrote:

On Oct 8 2007 16:44, Eberhard Roloff wrote:

...

My question:

Why on earth is this not included in the default out of the box installation?

Because some people have CRTs, and Subpixel Rendering looks horrible there.

I agree that CRTs are around anywhere. But this does not answer my question. If you are on a CRT, it is easy to disable subpixel hinting by a few mouseclicks with KDE and, I asume, with Gnome, as well. Furthermore, as things are now, you never need to disable it, since it is not enabled. ;-)) What I dislike is that I need to reconfigure a source rpm in order to make is work, instead of getting it out of the box, ready for work, ready to be enabled and ready to be disabled. regards Eberhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 08 October 2007 16:53, Eberhard Roloff wrote:

What I dislike is that I need to reconfigure a source rpm in order to make is work, instead of getting it out of the box, ready for work, ready to be enabled and ready to be disabled.

Well, I am sure you read the disclaimer at http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting Nobody likes those legal issues. Neither do we. We really regret that we cannot provide that functionality right out of the box. There is a reason why that web page is not hosted on any Novell server; it might have legal repercussions if we as a company did that. Sorry for the inconvenience. Kind regards -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

...

Well, I am sure you read the disclaimer at

http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting

Why so wimpy?

It says "... might infringe ..."

Until and unless the legal question is raised and settled in some plaintiff's favor, there's very little real risk to anybody. The worst that could happen is a cease-and-desist request. That would be the first step in any legal challenge. Then Novell could decide how to respond. But to roll over because someone is vaguely apprehensive about a software patent is absurd.

Well said Randall. If we were to take the tack that something "might" infringe, then why are we allowed to have Gnome or KDE or any window manger? There are components if not most of the entire structure that "might" infringe on MS owned patents... yet there is no question of shipping KDE and Gnome. Sadly... sanity never rules the day when it comes to lawyers. :-( C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Monday 08 October 2007 17:43, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Well, I am sure you read the disclaimer at

http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting

Why so wimpy?

It says "... might infringe ..."

IANAL. But let me put it this way: If the upstream authors of freetype were so sure about themselves, would they disable it already in their sources? If they are not so sure, why would we?

Until and unless the legal question is raised and settled in some plaintiff's favor, there's very little real risk to anybody. The worst that could happen is a cease-and-desist request.

...plus a lawsuit for damages. Creative lawyers might be tempted to multiply some random per-user amount of damage with the overall user base worldwide. That kind of thing easily can add up to tens of millions (or more). And until all that is settled, a Damocles sword of some phantastizillions might be hanging over us. Even if the lawsuit comes out to naught - after several years, like usual. Now why would we want that? That workaround with a hint page how to re-enable that feature (on a web site we cannot be held responsible for) might not be an ideal solution, but at least it puts the company that pays us full-time SuSE/Novell developers not at that kind of risk. Just my 0.02€. Kind regards -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

On Monday 08 October 2007 16:53, Eberhard Roloff wrote:

...

What I dislike is that I need to reconfigure a source rpm in order to make is work, instead of getting it out of the box, ready for work, ready to be enabled and ready to be disabled.

Well, I am sure you read the disclaimer at

http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting

Nobody likes those legal issues. Neither do we. We really regret that we cannot provide that functionality right out of the box.

There is a reason why that web page is not hosted on any Novell server; it might have legal repercussions if we as a company did that.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Kind regards

Isn't it possible to be an international and a European version DVD? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Oct 8 2007 18:18, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

On Monday 08 October 2007 18:11, Aristidis Zoutsos wrote:

...

Isn't it possible to be an international and a European version DVD?

And in what way would that stop a US-based company from filing a lawsuit against another US-based company that is responsible for all that?

We could get away doing that kind of thing back in the days when we were that small German company SuSE. But now that SUSE is owned 100% by Novell, that just won't work any more.

Why is why takeovers of this magnitude are evil >>:-) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Oct 8 2007 12:30, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

Why is why takeovers of this magnitude are evil >>:-)

This comment infers that openSUSE has not benefited from the takeover!

I never claimed that. It just happened that the benefits outweighed the 'losses'.

The openness and community involvement were present before the change?

Yes, probably just not as high as now. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Pon, 2007-10-08 at 09:52 -0700, Randall R Schulz wrote:

Nonetheless, I think all users of SuSE Linux / openSUSE most certainly have benefitted from Novell's purchase of SuSE.

Especially GNOME users ;) The funny thing is that I've never expected I'm gonna switch from Fedora to SUSE, but that have just happened with 10.3 (and I was a long time Red Hat / Fedora user). Novell SUSE team did a great job with 10.3. Speaking about subpixel hinting which is the topic, on other popular distros looks like crap even if a user recompiles freetype2 package with support for subpixel hinting. However, I'm expecting to see more switchers to openSUSE in the near future. Cheers! -- Igor Jagec

On Pon, 2007-10-08 at 21:42 +0200, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:

I am starting to do the rebuild of the rpm. However, I can't seem to find the exact version of the installed version in source format (freetype2-2.3.5-18).

Is that what you are looking for? http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/10.3/repo/src-oss/suse/src/freetyp... Cheers! -- Igor Jagec

On Monday 08 October 2007 18:26, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

...

We could get away doing that kind of thing back in the days when we were that small German company SuSE. But now that SUSE is owned 100% by Novell, that just won't work any more.

Why is why takeovers of this magnitude are evil >>:-)

Having been through all that, having owned employee shares (and lost a lot of money with them), having seen "investors" buying out the previous owners of the old SuSE (including the employees who held shares) for pennies in exchange for big bucks, having stood with our feet one inch before the abyss and having to accept that kind of buyout, I can say this about the Novell takeover: I am not a big fan of big companies that favour shareholder value above anything else. Far from it. I don't usually advocate Novell, nor do I get any benefits from doing so. It's my personal mind that is speaking here. But being owned by a tech company that is interested in the technology you make, a company that has great visions about that technology, a company that values the people having the know-how -- all that beats the hell out of being owned by a bunch of investment banks that just want to make a quick buck and then good riddance (and firing ~40% of all people in the process while setting up their own top managers who made quite some money). Back then (before the takeover by the investment banks), we were broke (and it was our own fault, nobody else's). Literally. We didn't have a choice. So the old SuSE management had to reach for any straw, even if that meant handing the company over to said investment banks. But we got lucky: The quick buck those investment banks wanted to make turned out to go to Novell, a company which back then had realized that they needed some technology to replace Netware -- for them as for their customers. Novell didn't jump the MS bandwagon; they saw their future in Linux. So they began buying Linux companies that were for sale. One such company was Ximian, one other was SuSE. And then something began that we remaining SuSE people wouldn't have believed: Not only did they realize the value of a well-known brand name "SuSE", they even did everything to absorb every tiny little bit of Linux know-how. Big and mighty 5000 people Novell started listening to tiny 350 people SuSE. The tail (SuSE) was beginning to wag the dog. I still find it amazing how that large Novell organization migrated their everything to Linux and Open Source. But they did. Department for department, they got a milestone plan (thinking in 3-6 month time frames, not 2-3 years as one might expect) and migrated their IT infrastructure to Linux and Open Source. Not just for techies, also for sales, marketing, administration, you name it. Amazing. We've been through times. Times where we had to produce an insane amount of small products of questionable value for the customer each quarter -- just to avoid getting broke again. Those times are over. Thanks to being owned by a company that has a vision (and no longer by investment banks whose sole vision are next quarter's figures). Folks, please get just a little bit more informed before you start bashing Novell. The old SuSE people don't do it, and there are reasons for that. OK, that was a little more than 2 Cents. Let's make this one whole Euro. ;-) -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. *** speaking privately, not as a SUSE employee *** YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

qft On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 19:00 +0800, Joe Morris (NTM) wrote:

On 10/09/2007 05:49 PM, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

...

Folks, please get just a little bit more informed before you start bashing Novell. The old SuSE people don't do it, and there are reasons for that.

OK, that was a little more than 2 Cents. Let's make this one whole Euro. ;-)

Well said, and at a bargain price as well. ;-)

-- Joe Morris Registered Linux user 231871 running openSUSE 10.2 x86_64

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 10/9/07, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

And then something began that we remaining SuSE people wouldn't have believed: Not only did they realize the value of a well-known brand name "SuSE", they even did everything to absorb every tiny little bit of Linux know-how. Big and mighty 5000 people Novell started listening to tiny 350 people SuSE. The tail (SuSE) was beginning to wag the dog.

Thanks for that candid viewpoint Stefan. Everyone only ever hears or sees what shows up in the media... a media that seems to delight in pouncing on any tidbit and blowing it all out of proportion. We rarely ever get the view of the "other side" of the story unless it has been sanitized by the marketeers and dare I say it... lawyers <shudder>. I hope the tail keeps wagging the dog :-) C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 09 October 2007 13:44, darko g wrote:

On 10/9/07, Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

...

We've been through times. Times where we had to produce an insane amount of small products of questionable value for the customer each quarter -- just to avoid getting broke again. Those times are over. Thanks to being owned by a company that has a vision (and no longer by investment banks whose sole vision are next quarter's figures).

FWIS, the vision is to sell identity and security software products to enterprises while using the SUSE brand name and Linux as the marketing bandwagon. Not that there is anything wrong with that vision as long as they keep diverting funds into the OpenSUSE project, but just stating, lets be honest about what the vision is.

AFAICS that is one vision from many. Yes, Novell wants to make money. Of course. All corporations do. And yes, Novell discovered Linux and Open Source as one way to make money. There is nothing wrong with that, neither legally nor morally. Linux wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for all those corporations paying developers to contribute. Not even Open Source developers can live on fresh air alone. ;-) Yes, parts of Linux and Open Source in general are being developed by unpaid students in universities. But other parts are not. And those are paid for by corporations that of course expect some value in return; something to make money with. It's all about giving and taking. The company giveth, and the company also receiveth. ;-) So far, I'd say the community got its fair share. openSUSE as a community project would not exist if it hadn't been for Novell management to allocate the funds for constantly ongoing (!) involvement. Another 0.02€ (and running out of small coins quickly...) -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction. *** speaking privately, not as a SUSE employee *** YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 10/9/07, Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett wrote:

On Tuesday 09 October 2007 13:56:33 Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

...

So far, I'd say the community got its fair share. openSUSE as a community project would not exist if it hadn't been for Novell management to allocate the funds for constantly ongoing (!) involvement.

That is so true.

When I joined SUSE, after two days, I learned about this project to open the complete distribution. It was driven by very few people, with lot of energy. At the begining, not having more resources it was just a wiki. But the wiki and this wonderful people did more noise than Metallica's concerts.

Today, we are further than that. This dream has grown like a monster. Today openSUSE has a name in the organization chart and the project is so big, noisy and cool. Things like the build service are _unique_, and none of these things would have been possible without Novell.

Duncan Well,

This is a fair explanation about Linux and it's adoption in Novell. I'm an OpenSUSE big fans, and SUSE Novell take over issue (and, off course about Microsoft-Novell issue) always asked by another people if I tried to spread out or talk about OpenSUSE . I write down some good point from Stefan and Duncan. As described by Clayton, "Everyone only ever hears or sees what shows up in the media... a media that seems to delight in pouncing on any tidbit and blowing it all out of proportion." I absolutely agree with his reply. I never thinking before that SUSE Novell Takeover make such big changes to Linux adoption in Novell, not only from commercial side of its takeover. Thanks for sharing your opinion, Stefan... Regards, Vavai http://www.vavai.com/blog/index.php -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 09 October 2007 10:49, Stefan Hundhammer wrote: [...]

Folks, please get just a little bit more informed before you start bashing Novell. The old SuSE people don't do it, and there are reasons for that.

OK, that was a little more than 2 Cents. Let's make this one whole Euro. ;-) -- Stefan Hundhammer Penguin by conviction.

*** speaking privately, not as a SUSE employee ***

YaST2 Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) Nürnberg, Germany

Thanks, Stefan, that was really worth reading. Good luck to all at SuSE. -- Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB Tel: 0161 834 7961 Fax: 0161 839 5797 http://www.chethams.org.uk -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Stefan Hundhammer wrote:

... Folks, please get just a little bit more informed before you start bashing Novell. The old SuSE people don't do it, and there are reasons for that.

Wow, I already considered Novell heroic enough in the SCO affair that I stuck with them even through what I consider a disgusting cozying up to Microsoft. It's good to hear that there are more heroic actions to support. I'd never have heard all this without your comments and I appreciate it, Stefan. John Perry -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Basil Chupin escribió:

So why is one afraid of the other (?"big swinging dick"?) of 'upsetting' the one who is not looking up at the ceiling all the time in this relationship?

"'might' infringe".

Oh, come on!

Don't be a bunch of pansies in Novell, and don't come up with "'*might*' infringe" statements,

it *might* because it is not known for sure, it has to be proven in court, but certainly no one wants to take that risk. -- "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." --Ray Bradbury Cristian Rodríguez R. SUSE LINUX Products GmbH Research & Development -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

----- "Eberhard Roloff" wrote: | Jan Engelhardt wrote: | > On Oct 8 2007 16:44, Eberhard Roloff wrote: | >> My question: | >> | >> Why on earth is this not included in the default out of the box | >> installation? | > | > Because some people have CRTs, and Subpixel Rendering looks horrible | there. | | I agree that CRTs are around anywhere. But this does not answer my | question. | | If you are on a CRT, it is easy to disable subpixel hinting by a few | mouseclicks with KDE and, I asume, with Gnome, as well. Furthermore, | as | things are now, you never need to disable it, since it is not enabled. | ;-)) | | What I dislike is that I need to reconfigure a source rpm in order to | make is work, instead of getting it out of the box, ready for work, | ready to be enabled and ready to be disabled. | I agree it's a shame we need to configure manually another installation source just to replace the freetype2 rpms and then go setup proper sub-pixel hinting for LCDs. I can see the point about CRTs, but with the MS-Novell deal I would have expected the installer in 10.3 would have this available as an out-of-the-box option. Having said that, the 10.3 install was great and 10.3 is running noticeably faster than 10.2 on my IBM R52 laptop. I was also very pleasantly surprised to see that during the install YaST correctly detected an encrypted partition, and then walked through making that partition accessible as part of the install. In previous versions it was just easier to backup the partition, format it and encrypt it as part of the install, and then restore the data from the backup. Hope that helps, Mark -- ______________________________________________________ Another Message From... L. Mark Stone -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

----- "Cristian Rodriguez" wrote: | L. Mark Stone escribió: | | > but with the MS-Novell deal I would have expected the installer in | 10.3 would have this available as an out-of-the-box option. | | Then you did not understand at all what the deal is about. go and | read | the FAQ. | | | -- | "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people | to | stop reading them." --Ray Bradbury | | Cristian Rodríguez R. | SUSE LINUX Products GmbH | Research & Development Hi Cristian, I appreciate your monitoring this discussion list and your suggestion in principle. I did read the FAQ. I also did media and technology mergers and acquisitions for thirteen years, and multi-million dollar software development and licensing deals in private industry thereafter, so I have some experience with software contracts and transactions. My read of the relevant portion of the FAQ at the time the deal was announced was that Novell and MS would pursue cross-licensing transactions to further interoperability between the two platforms and protect Novell Linux users from IP infringement actions that Microsoft may bring. Cleartype IMHO falls into this category, and since so much time has passed since the MS-Novell deal was announced, I was surprised that this very visible benefit to LCD users had not been acted upon by the time 10.3 was released. We are a small Novell customer, with only a handful of SLES licenses, but our consulting engagements extend to current Novell shops with thousands of seats, and we have been asked by clients specifically about this issue. One client is evaluating a Linux vs. Windows Terminal Server farm and screen readability figures prominently in their selection criteria. What would be helpful would be an official position announcement from Novell regarding the timeframe, if any, for making Cleartype functionality available to Novell Linux users. What can you do to help us get official clarity from Novell on this issue? Thanks, Mark -- _________________________________________________________ A Message From... L. Mark Stone Reliable Networks of Maine, LLC "Uptime. All the time." 477 Congress Street Portland, ME 04101 Tel: (207) 772-5678 Web: http://www.reliablenetworks.com This email was sent from Reliable Networks of Maine LLC. It may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If you suspect that you were not intended to receive it, please delete it and notify us as soon as possible. Thank you. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Rajko M. wrote:

On Monday 08 October 2007 09:44:38 am Eberhard Roloff wrote: ...

...

-What about the infamous Novell/MS deal?

I thought that it was done to prevent exactly such things from happening?

If previous 10k messages about this topic wasn't enough to explain, than nothing will.

I agree, nothing will make me understand, why this was done. ;-))) thanks much Eberhard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org