[ft] Seeking answers on subpixel rendering

[chojin]

I am a long time windows user who has, around once a year for the past 6 or
so years, tried to make an effort to switch my business (graphic design and
web development) over to linux and the one thing consistently holding me
back is font rendering... freetype is the best attempt so far, but is SO far
away from windows and osx.

I have done my best to educate myself on freetype and so on, and one of the
few things I'm left speechless about is subpixel fonts. (Yes I am using an
LCD, yes the bars are RGB, yes subpix is calibrated correctly for it - this
is in regards to subpixel rendering as a method itself and not my specific
implementation).

Basically, it does nothing. It's a massive scam. It just produces slight
annoying color ringing around fonts and hinders readibility. As a test, here
is a cooltype rendered font, then the same paragraph below it in grayscale:

http://www.nabble.com/file/7364/whysubpixelsucks.png 

As you can see, the grayscale is far more comfortable to read, with no
annoying ringing. Yet, when subpixel rendering is turned off in freetype,
the actual RENDERING changes. Why is this? Shouldn't subpixel just convert
some of the antialiasing into fringe colors, corresponding to the adjacent
rgb bars?

What I am saying is, shouldn't type libs focus on antialiasing and kerning
(which in themselves have a long, long, long way to go before they hit the
same level that win/osx have) and drop the (possibly patent infringing)
subpixel stuff? Does the bytecode interpreter have anything to do with this
kind of antialiasing? Could an autohinter produce the quality of
antialiasing shown above?

Maybe I am confused but that's why I posted here - the best place to get an
answer would be from freetype users themselves.
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