[ft-devel] Microsoft Font Validator open-sourced under the MIT license!

[Hin-Tak Leung]

Dear all,

I am glad the cat is finally out of the bag:

https://github.com/Microsoft/Font-Validator

and all the stuff I have added are in:
https://github.com/HinTak/Font-Validator

Mono on non-windows can be used to build and run it. It is mainly
being worked on on Linux, but known to work on Mac OS X also.

And many thanks to Aaron Bell of Microsoft for making it happen.

The older 2003 binary is still downloadable from the Microsoft typography
we site, and it performs 177 tests AFAIK. Discussion a few months ago led to
a code bundle last updated around 2009 for the last OpenType spec
being prepared (and sanitized...) to be liberated to the open-source community.
The newer 2009 code does 194 tests, as well as testing for ClearType
rasterization, etc.

The 189/194 status is a reference to when the code first passed through my
hands, 5 of the 194 test did not work; it went up to 193/194, the last one being
DSIG digital signature verification. There is a bit more late-breaking info 
about that on:

https://github.com/Microsoft/Font-Validator/pull/1

General dev info are in the FontVal-dev.pdf slide, the README*'s;
if you just want to use it, pre-built binary at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hp-pxl-jetready/files/private-test-data/

There are a few remaining pieces:

- FreeType-based rasterisation

- improving the DSIGInfo tool until it can be scavenged to make
the last DSIG test work - the tool currently justs read the signature and tells 
you about
the certificates and the digest, but makes not attempts to verify either (yet).

- bring it further up from 2009 level AFAIK to the current 2015 spec level.

 And other issues like support for CFF fonts and the missing built-in XML 
reporter
viewer.

People who like to contribute by testing their favourite fonts for
ISO/IEC 14496-22 spec compliance, fix bugs, etc please feel free to do so.

Finishing the remaining pieces sounds like a full time job for a few months - 
and
I'd welcome interested parties (Adobe? Google?) who iike to commission me to
continue; and please feel free to forward.

Hin-Tak