Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 10th Apr 2007 18:53 UTC
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
Yes it seems it has been checked out by David Turner of Freetype. The code will now only be used if you activate it via macro for those in countries not affected by patents.
He says that he checked the patent and it appears to cover all sub-pixel cases and affects libXFT, Cairo and probably XRender used in X11 server. He checked for prior art and that Steve Gibson in incorrect. Apples Wozniak patent covers only used 2 sub-pixels. Microsoft has gone to pains to emphasize that it must be at least 3 sub-pixels in their patent.
Links below.
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.fonts.freetype.user/1912
http://www.mail-archive.com/freetype@nongnu.org/msg00972.html
Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2005-07-08
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2006-01-16
All the talk about "ClearType" in SUSE is crap. We are talking about sub-pixel antialiasing in the Freetype implementation, _not_ in the Microsoft implementation (which is called ClearType).
If Microsoft holds patents on ClearType, one has first to check wether Freetype really violates these patents.