Okay, so, here we go again with this... well, actually, hoping *not* to, but one specific thing keeps coming up. As far as I know, the patents affecting freetype expired, and the "freetype-freeworld" package from third party repositories no longer has any special sauce. Yet, I still see people swearing up and down that this makes a big difference, it's included in "making fonts in Fedora look good" guides everywhere — even though that patent expiration was now long ago. And I see that in RPMFusion, the "freetype-freeworld" package still exists and is regularly updated.
So, what's going on with this? My uneducated guess is that the "freeworld" package simply enables autohinting that we have off by default and does not contain any magic sauce. Is this correct?
(On the other hand "Infinality" is a set of patches to Freetype, and appears specifically tuned for various sets of non-free fonts.)
On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
So, what's going on with this? My uneducated guess is that the "freeworld" package simply enables autohinting that we have off by default and does not contain any magic sauce. Is this correct?
AFAIK, the patent issues and what people on the internet asks for is *not* about hinting. It's subpixel rendering/filtering[1].
Rui
On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 5:40 PM, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
(On the other hand "Infinality" is a set of patches to Freetype, and appears specifically tuned for various sets of non-free fonts.)
Not just non-free. One of the first things I do post install is to change default font from Cantarell to Liberation (due to Cantarell lack of non-latin chars) and then install infinality patches. The difference is *huge*.
On Tue, 2015-06-09 at 10:40 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
Okay, so, here we go again with this... well, actually, hoping *not* to, but one specific thing keeps coming up. As far as I know, the patents affecting freetype expired, and the "freetype-freeworld" package from third party repositories no longer has any special sauce.
Subpixel rendering is still disabled in the Fedora freetype package, due to patents that have not expired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents
I think we just need to accept that we can't have good font rendering until they expire.
Yet, I still see people swearing up and down that this makes a big difference, it's included in "making fonts in Fedora look good" guides everywhere — even though that patent expiration was now long ago. And I see that in RPMFusion, the "freetype-freeworld" package still exists and is regularly updated.
So, what's going on with this? My uneducated guess is that the "freeworld" package simply enables autohinting that we have off by default and does not contain any magic sauce. Is this correct?
Fedora supports autohinting without installing anything extra, just change hint type to Light (codeword for "autohint") in Tweak Tool. Autohinting does not usually work as well as normal hinting, so it's good that it's not used by default.
(On the other hand "Infinality" is a set of patches to Freetype, and appears specifically tuned for various sets of non-free fonts.)
The best description of Infinality I've found is http://www.infinality.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18
Highlight: "These modifications essentially cause the Truetype interpreter in Freetype to ignore hinting in the X direction, giving a Cleartype-like result (unlike many pre-existing so-called "cleartype" packages for various distros). The default Truetype interpreter in Freetype renders fonts "correctly", in that it follows the instructions given to it by the font. For legacy fonts (Arial, Verdana, Times, etc.) these instructions were created with the idea that the end rasterization of the font would be monochrome, i.e. Black and White pixels only."
This is one of the biggest UI issues I have with Fedora post-install, the fonts are very jarring versus the whole Ubuntu/Mac/Windows experience. It's a non-ideal way to present Workstation to new users. I've actually filed a bug about this:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1036220
What I don't understand is why Ubuntu has great fonts hinting by default despite these patents being out there. Do they use a different package or configuration of the existing patent-free Freetype?
On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 12:03 PM, Michael Catanzaro mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Tue, 2015-06-09 at 10:40 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
Okay, so, here we go again with this... well, actually, hoping *not* to, but one specific thing keeps coming up. As far as I know, the patents affecting freetype expired, and the "freetype-freeworld" package from third party repositories no longer has any special sauce.
Subpixel rendering is still disabled in the Fedora freetype package, due to patents that have not expired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents
I think we just need to accept that we can't have good font rendering until they expire.
Yet, I still see people swearing up and down that this makes a big difference, it's included in "making fonts in Fedora look good" guides everywhere — even though that patent expiration was now long ago. And I see that in RPMFusion, the "freetype-freeworld" package still exists and is regularly updated.
So, what's going on with this? My uneducated guess is that the "freeworld" package simply enables autohinting that we have off by default and does not contain any magic sauce. Is this correct?
Fedora supports autohinting without installing anything extra, just change hint type to Light (codeword for "autohint") in Tweak Tool. Autohinting does not usually work as well as normal hinting, so it's good that it's not used by default.
(On the other hand "Infinality" is a set of patches to Freetype, and appears specifically tuned for various sets of non-free fonts.)
The best description of Infinality I've found is http://www.infinality.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18
Highlight: "These modifications essentially cause the Truetype interpreter in Freetype to ignore hinting in the X direction, giving a Cleartype-like result (unlike many pre-existing so-called "cleartype" packages for various distros). The default Truetype interpreter in Freetype renders fonts "correctly", in that it follows the instructions given to it by the font. For legacy fonts (Arial, Verdana, Times, etc.) these instructions were created with the idea that the end rasterization of the font would be monochrome, i.e. Black and White pixels only." -- desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
On Tue, 2015-06-09 at 12:13 -0400, Alex G.S. wrote:
This is one of the biggest UI issues I have with Fedora post-install, the fonts are very jarring versus the whole Ubuntu/Mac/Windows experience. It's a non-ideal way to present Workstation to new users. I've actually filed a bug about this:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1036220
What I don't understand is why Ubuntu has great fonts hinting by default despite these patents being out there. Do they use a different package or configuration of the existing patent-free Freetype?
Ubuntu is incorporated in the Isle of Man where they do not have a patent treaty preventing them from distributing this content. Fedora is required to follow US laws regarding patent and copyright.
On Tue, Jun 09, 2015 at 11:03:52AM -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
Subpixel rendering is still disabled in the Fedora freetype package, due to patents that have not expired: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#Patents
Ahhh, this is why the fonts don't go all rainbow even if one turns antialiasing to Rgba in the tweak tool.
I think we just need to accept that we can't have good font rendering until they expire.
Or, we recommend hi-dpi screens where this is a non-issue. :)
On Tue, 2015-06-09 at 10:40 -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
Okay, so, here we go again with this... well, actually, hoping *not* to, but one specific thing keeps coming up. As far as I know, the patents affecting freetype expired, and the "freetype-freeworld" package from third party repositories no longer has any special sauce. Yet, I still see people swearing up and down that this makes a big difference, it's included in "making fonts in Fedora look good" guides everywhere — even though that patent expiration was now long ago. And I see that in RPMFusion, the "freetype-freeworld" package still exists and is regularly updated.
So, what's going on with this? My uneducated guess is that the "freeworld" package simply enables autohinting that we have off by default and does not contain any magic sauce. Is this correct?
There is really no best answer for font rendering. A depends greatly on the font in question, the screen resolution, and your personal preference. Some people prefer shape over sharpness, others can't stand fuzzy fonts.
There is a lot of snake oil out on the internet when it comes to fonts, and there's probably a placebo effect - you feel that your fonts look better, because you followed some instructions on some web page that are supposed to make them look better....
Thankfully, increasing screen resolution makes this issue increasingly less of a problem.
On 06/09/2015 12:51 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
There is really no best answer for font rendering. A depends greatly on the font in question, the screen resolution, and your personal preference. Some people prefer shape over sharpness, others can't stand fuzzy fonts.
So maybe this should be settable in the control center rather than requiring the tweak tool? Not the full set of freetype-able options, but just a "Smoother / Crisper" toggle.
-- Dan
On Tue, Jun 09, 2015 at 12:51:33PM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
There is really no best answer for font rendering. A depends greatly on the font in question, the screen resolution, and your personal preference. Some people prefer shape over sharpness, others can't stand fuzzy fonts.
Agreed. I was just wondering if there was actually something in the freetype-freeworld package we can't offer, or whether it's just repeated wisdom with the meaning fallen out. Sounds like there still is at least the subpixel antialiasing.
On 9 June 2015 at 21:58, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Tue, Jun 09, 2015 at 12:51:33PM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
There is really no best answer for font rendering. A depends greatly on the font in question, the screen resolution, and your personal preference. Some people prefer shape over sharpness, others can't stand fuzzy fonts.
Agreed. I was just wondering if there was actually something in the freetype-freeworld package we can't offer, or whether it's just repeated wisdom with the meaning fallen out. Sounds like there still is at least the subpixel antialiasing.
s/at least/only/ .
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