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Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

Basically, here's what's going on:

1) There aren't many free typefaces for daily use that are beautiful, so you have to buy (or commission) several and "open source" them.

2) Techniques for AA font rendering that maximize aesthetics and readability are protected by numerous software patents. Years ago there was a short-lived patch in Xorg that had a modern font-AA algorithm that held its own against the competition, but it turned out to step on several patents so it was axed out of fear of litigation. That fear is very real, as typography-related tech patents are one of the most aggressively guarded elements of tech-IP.

As a result, the Linux developers have been forced to re-invent the wheel from the ground up when it comes to typography in Linux distributions.

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I'm fairly certain that this is a common misconception, which was true at one point in time but no longer applies but I'm not really expert enough (in fonts or Linux) to sound confident in that.

Basically, my take is that you need the fancy expensive typefaces and the patented hinting if you want type to look really good at small sizes and without anti-aliasing i.e. Windows before cleartype or Macs before OS X.

The vast majority of people don't want that, they want OS X style rendering, particularly if their monitor is 95dpi or up. Admittedly there are a vocal minority of geeks that grew up with the former type of font rendering, but even they seem to limit this preference to coding fonts and even they seem to be leaving this behind as dpis go up.

If you want OS X rendering on Linux you can have it today, without patented code, or the need for meticusously hinted fonts (which makes them much easier to produce as open source).

It basically involves going into the advanced Gnome font controls turning off all hinting. Voila! "Blurry" Mac OS X style font rendering. You can add sub-pixel rendering to taste.

You can also make it look like XP, which I personally think is a bit retrograde and ironically this does require well-hinted fonts (like Microsoft's) and patented code.

There's a how-to here: http://www.sharpfonts.com/

Is there source code out there for a patent infringing Ubuntu font fix?

Yes, it's a part of Freetype, Ubuntu just doesn't enable it at compile-time.

  In include/freetype/config/ftoption.h:
    enable  FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING
    enable  TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER
    disable TT_CONFIG_OPTION_UNPATENTED_HINTING

Even under the most anal-retentive freetard fealty to Intellectual Property Law, distribution of C source code cannot infringe upon patents, only distribution of compiled binaries. It's the difference between promulgating plans for the machine (the original point of patents) and capitalizing on said plans.

Gentoo is the only distro I know of that has it turned on by default.

All true.

Ubuntu's avowed mission is to bring Linux to the Masses. For the masses, a computer still "looks" like Windows. Ubuntu being a Funded initiative unlike Arch(my choice), Gentoo, Crunchbang et all needs to fund the development of typography on Linux.

Yes, its possible to download msttcorefonts (with some creativity you could also get the Consolas set of fonts) and get Cleartype or Os X type smoothing - but as long as its not the default , i am afraid there is no pushing Linux onto the masses.

I think you overestimate how closely "the masses" pay attention to fonts. (Unless you're talking about "the masses" of programmers and designers, which actually is still a healthy chunk of Ubuntu's potential market at this point.) Yeah ok the hinting isn't so great and Bitstream Vera Sans is a little too wide but it's not THAT bad.

I should have been clearer - most programmers i know are happy to try out the various font customization techniques and some of them accept it even - by "masses" i meant the large number of people who have used a computer(primarily Windows) before and are willing to give Ubuntu a try, but they do not want or know how-to fiddle with font customizations. This group of people is the natural customer for Ubuntu and i believe the vast majority of them go back to their previous O.S simply because the default fonts for them are not Windows-like. My point is Ubuntu would better serve its "natural customer" by focussing on making the O.S look good for this group of people i.e. look Windows-like by default, rather than other newer features.

The masses still use Comic Sans for presentations. They don't really know or care what that serif/sans business is all about and they definitely don't care about the default font. As bad as it is, that's what I see all around.

But I'm not sure what is the problem with font customisation you're referring to. There's a dialog with 4 basic choices (from "blurry" to "crisp, subpixel) and another dialog for fine tuning where you see examples for every single option. How can it be simpler?

Just because people don't know anything about fonts doesn't mean they don't recognize when something looks nice.

A lot of information surrounding #2 is discussed at http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html

I thought the patent issues were mostly about these older Apple patents:

http://www.freetype.org/patents.html

I'd not heard about these subpixel patents, but I'd be happy to have them removed from Linux as I honestly don't think they add that much in Mac OS X style font presentation, as opposed to Windows Cleartype style.

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