Re: [ft-devel] Does the freetype support this font?

[mpsuzuki]

Hi,

On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:28:36 +0800
DingLi(丁力) <address@hidden> wrote:
>Agfa Font Compression(.ac3)
>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_1997_Sept_29/ai_19792516
>http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6031622.html

Thank you very much for providing the concrete patent info.
I think MicroType font compression technology you referred
is ISO/IEC 14496-18, and there would be market requirement
around moving-picture codecs.

You can find a comment in ttgload.c:

   164    
/*************************************************************************/
   165    /*                                                                    
   */
   166    /* The following functions are used by default with TrueType fonts.   
   */
   167    /* However, they can be replaced by alternatives if we need to 
support   */
   168    /* TrueType-compressed formats (like MicroType) in the future.        
   */
   169    /*                                                                    
   */
   170    
/*************************************************************************/

At present, MicroType is not supported.

I guess (some of) FreeType developers would be interested in, 
but I'm afraid it won't be supported as far as the patents
are permitted by Agfa to implement under FTL or GPLv2, or,
until the day it is expired (2017?).

Yet I've not checked how ISO/IEC 14496-18 describes about
the patent issues.

Regards,
mpsuzuki