(mgp-users 00178) Re: FreeType patent problems?

[Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino <itojun@itojun.org>]

>I just looked at http://www.freetype.org/ .  The home page has a notice,
>dated August 4, that says:
>> We have recently discovered that Apple owns several patents related
>> to TrueType rendering.
>> 
>> Even though we're unable to tell for now wether FreeType violates
>> them, this could mean that the free use of the library could be
>> illegal in the US or other countries like Japan, be it in commercial
>> or free projects.
>> 
>> We have sent emails to Apple's legal department, and are still
>> waiting for their answer. More information will be posted on this
>> page has we receive it.
>How well does MagicPoint work without FreeType?  Any tips on what to do
>or what to avoid?  BTW, I'm *not* an expert on fonts or font technology.

	Magicpoint supports the following font rendering engines.
	- X11 (yes of course)
	- freetype
	- vflib (mostly for Japanese vector fonts)
	The code tries to use the best font rendering engine possible.

	Also, Magicpoint provides a way to write a rendering engine independent
	presentation files.  If you define font set name by using %font,
	you will never write, say, "helvetica" or "arial" directly in the
	presentation files (instead, you will write the font set name you've
	defined with %font).

	So, to avoid the above problem, you just need to disable freetype,
	by "./configure --disable-freetype".  The next possible font rendering
	engine (the last resort is, of course, X11) will be used.

itojun