On 08/30/2012 05:05 AM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
Part one and two are not patented. However, to make the third part work, you currently have to activate some FreeType code which is potentially patented. It's rather straightforward to circumvent this by providing sub-pixel handling outside of FreeType (i.e. rasterizing with the horizontal resolution increased by a factor of three, then applying a non-patented color filter), but this isn't implemented in the X server, AFAIK. Maybe Erik can shed more light onto this issue.
Unfortunately that is about the limit of my understanding on the patent / LCD situation. Werner- Didn't you say at one point that it wasn't the filtering technique that was patented, but rather the specific variables (subpixel intensities) used in the filtering? If that's the case then you'd just have to make sure that the FIR 5 values are not patented. Based on my understanding of what MS is doing, they are in fact weighing colors differently based on how the human eye perceives them ( http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/68972/optfilt.pdf). This is certainly beyond anything Freetype is doing, as I understand it anyway.
freetype and most of the distros dont include it by default because its fonts list focus on proprietary fonts from MS and Apple which dont be on linux distros thus not the type of freetype and linux distros. [...]
But it will improve a lot for CJK fonts. Normally, CJK characters don't contain TrueType hints at all since this would approximately double the file size. Instead, bitmap strokes are provided for the most common characters at the most common ppem sizes. In other words, improvements in rasterizing CJK fonts is usually coming from the patches to the auto-hinter.
MS fonts like Meiryo do have TT hints in them and end up *substantially* benefiting in appearace with the Infinality patch. For other CJK fonts without TT hints, it of course that has no effect and it uses the autohinter. Regards, Erik -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse-factory+owner@opensuse.org