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

[Anthony Fok]

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.

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.

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.  ;-)

Cheers,

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Fok Tung-Ling
ThizLinux Laboratory   <address@hidden> http://www.thizlinux.com/
Debian Chinese Project <address@hidden>       http://www.debian.org/intl/zh/
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