-----Message d'origine----- De : Philippe Verdy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Envoye : jeudi 4 decembre 2003 00:15 A : John Hudson Objet : RE: Free Fonts
John Hudson writes: > At 10:08 AM 12/3/2003, Philippe Verdy wrote: > > >Simple: for now the fonts are in beta, and do not include the hinting > >instructions. This may be in development, but faces some legal issues > >with Apple patents. So until there's a patent-free hinting mechanism, > >for use in fonts, or Apple agrees with a royaltee-free license on > >hinting mechanisms, hinted fonts cannot be freely distributed. > > Sorry, but you really do not know what you are talking about. What cannot > be freely distributed are *rasterisers* that make use of Apple patented > technology that interpret TT instruction sets. Anyone can make, hint and > ship -- freely or for a licensing fee -- a font with a full set of hint > instructions. What you cannot do is build a rasteriser that interprets > these hints without licensing the technology from Apple. This does not seem clear when you look at the claims of the 3 Apple patents: the term "rasterizer" is not even used, and what is patented to the method to represent these hints. So, unless Apple publishes a legal disclaimer about what is really patented, I do think that the situation is quite ambiguous, and even creating a hinted font or creating a tool that allow making such hinting in a font design may require a license to use the hinting method. I do think it is dangerous for an open-sourced project to assume that it is possible to hint a font that should be freely distributed, as the project itself gets no money to pay the distribution licenses. __________________________________________________________________ << ella for Spam Control >> has removed Spam messages and set aside Newsletters for me You can use it too - and it's FREE! http://www.ellaforspam.com __________________________________________________________________ << ella for Spam Control >> has removed Spam messages and set aside Newsletters for me You can use it too - and it's FREE! http://www.ellaforspam.com
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