Re: [gentoo-user] FreeType unpatented auto-hinter?

[Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 10:13 AM, Nilesh Govindarajan
<contact@nileshgr.com> wrote:
> Somebody on twitter told me that Ubuntu uses a special patch for
> freetype that improves font rendering manifolds.
>
> So I rebuilt freetype with these useflags: +auto-hinter +bindist
>
> What is the difference between this unpatented auto hinter and the
> TrueType BC interpreter?

The "auto-hinter" USE flag enables the old auto-hinter code that was
used before the bytecode interpreter patents expired (which happened
in 2010). The bytecode interpreter is now the default and is
considered to be the best-performing option.

"Since May 2010, all patents related to bytecode hinting have expired
worldwide. It it thus no longer necessary to disable the bytecode
interpreter, and starting with FreeType version 2.4, it is enabled by
default." (according to http://www.freetype.org/patents.html)

I would check with your friend on Twitter to be sure they aren't
talking about pre-freetype-2.4 behavior...

With regard to Ubuntu's actual patches, here they are:
https://launchpadlibrarian.net/76814921/freetype_2.4.4-2ubuntu1.diff.gz

There aren't a lot of apparent changes to the actual freetype engine
(mostly patching the docs, build system and demos). There are
basically no comments, and I can't tell what it's trying to
accomplish.