Jim Gettys wrote:
> ...
> it is infeasible to update all the (X) servers to support new
> font technology. ... Application developers won't use something
> if it badly restricts the market for their software.
Well put.
> Keith recently implemented client side rendering in Xft, so that
> Xft will work against unmodified X servers, ... Applications that
> will work (even if somewhat slowly) always trump applications
> that won't run at all,
Before Keith's new work the lack of support for existing X servers
was a major sticking point to even *considering* Xft in the
Mozilla/Netscape browser.
> Sufficient information must be available ... for printing use
> (something we ignored in the design of the X protocol).
X really needs adequate printing support if it is really going
to be considered a usable system for users.
> So to be useful to applications on systems, any access to fonts
> must be able to access *any* information in the font files, which
> will continue to evolve.
Since the protocol and server extension have such a long
deployment time it suggests avoiding frequent changes to them.
This favors keeping them as simple as possible and moving the
complexity to the client side.
Do the STSF people have thoughts on this? Perhaps there are
ways to manage the deployment issue.
--
Brian Stell
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