As reported by Slashdot, debate has risen over ClearType in Linux. OpenSUSE recently disabled this technology, saying "that this feature is covered by several Microsoft patents and should not be activated in any default build of the library". Other websites have picked up on this as well: "The strange thing is though: no matter the fact that Novell and Microsoft are now buddies, openSUSE still has to be concerned about the ClearType patents!"
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Member since:2005-07-06
Amen. As near as I can tell, the sequence was that a bug was reported, squashed as feature-not-a-bug, Beranger wrote his article, which slashdot completely misreported, and was responded to by Beranger here:
http://beranger.org/index.php?article=2805
I take it you did actually read all of that?
It also doesn't explain why Novell and Red Hat feel OK about turning it on in their Enterprise distributions but not OK about turning it on for everyone else. It's an awful lot of theoretical hoo-ha about patents that doesn't get open source software any further forward. Turning things off doesn't help anyone. The Freetype person who quoted all this nonsense even states:
Of course, all of this is my personal opinion, and I would *love* to be proven wrong !!
and he's talking about how the patents cover this and how they can't be invalidated.... Unbelievable.
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.fonts.freetype.user/1912
Member since:
2006-02-02
Amen. As near as I can tell, the sequence was that a bug was reported, squashed as feature-not-a-bug, Beranger wrote his article, which slashdot completely misreported, and was responded to by Beranger here:
http://beranger.org/index.php?article=2805
The internet is typically a mob, and Novell's been nominated for a lynching-- they don't have to do anything wrong right now to be a villain.