Re: [Devel] Apple patents (was `Some numbers smaller than some others')

[David Turner]

Hello Anthony,

Anthony Fok a écrit :
> 
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 10:33:30AM +0200, Vincent Caron wrote:
> > On Wed, 2002-06-19 at 21:50, Sebastien BARRE wrote:
> > Seeing Mandrake's or RedHat's RPMs of FreeType compiled with the
> > TrueType bytecode interpreter, I could only think they purchased a
> > license from Apple. However Debian also ships FreeType compiled with the
> > bytecode interpreter, and they have a definitively clear policy against
> > patents.
> 
> Neither Mandrake's or Red Hat's official freetype RPMs have the TrueType
> bytecode interpreter enabled, so they are safe.
>
They used to ignore the issue for a long time and shipped binaries with
the TrueType interpreter enabled. However, it seems they've became more
cautious now and just build and distribute the default package :-)
 
> I maintain the FreeType package for Debian.  I turned on the TrueType
> bytecode interpreter in the Debian's freetype package because I
> personally think that there are prior arts on Apple's patent.  For
> example, I heard that most of the ideas described in the patent can be
> found in TeX, which predates TrueType.
>
I don't know who started this myth, but I'm pretty certain that *none* of
the technology in TeX covers any of the claims present in the Apple patents.
There are several reasons for that:

  - the TrueType patents cover the adjustment of glyph _outlines_, while
    TeX only deals with "brushed/stroked paths", which are very different
    things (and actually quite difficult to convert to bezier paths).

  - there is nothing in MetaFont that relates to the use of two distinct
    vectors to perform distance measurement and point displacement at
    the same time (even though this idea is somewhat obvious to me as
    soon as one wants to hint diagonals properly)

In other words, there is no way that a lawyer or judge is going to consider
that the Apple patents are invalid due to TeX, so forget about that.

I do consider that the patented processes were obvious at the time of the
invention for any software engineer competent in the of digital typography
(especially the delta-hinting !!), and that they should have been rejected.

I also wouldn't be surprised if such technologies weren't used in other
proprietary formats, like .FFF, which went bust a long time ago. We'll
never know for sure...

However, it's probably too late to attack them right now; let's just wait
a few more years, or use alternate technologies/fonts.

> That is my personal decision, not a conscience decision by the whole
> Debian Project. Over last year, I have received a few queries from
> users about this.  If there is a consensus that I should turn off the
> bytecode interpreter option in Debian, I can always turn it off, albeit
> reluctantly.  ;-)
> 
Anthony, that's probably a very courageous decision, but I'd better be sure
that your choice is not based on un-factual opinion that could alter your
judgement.


Best Regards,

- David Turner
- The FreeType Project  (www.freetype.org)