RE: TrueType and Gnome

[Todd Graham Lewis <tlewis mindspring net>]

On Mon, 24 Aug 1998, Nelson Minar wrote:

> >you cannot, must not, assume
> >that the X server is XFree.
> 
> Of course! But xfsft works with any X server that supports font
> servers (which I think is most of them now).

That really doesn't matter, though, does it?  Are you really going to say,
"In order to use GNOME under Solaris, you have to configure your X server
to use the GNOME font server, which you also have to add to your system
startup scripts.  Oh yeah, when you patch your OS and it nukes the xfsft
script, then all GNOME apps will break by virtue of being fontless"?

If you want it to be truly portable, then you have to do it above the
X server.  This sucks big time, for the following reason.

I really regret that we cannot add this to all of X, which would
be pretty easy to do (no harder, that is, than adding it to XFree.)
I still think that it is incumbent upon us, for the good of unix, to
try to persuade the commercial unix vendors to add true type support
to X, as well as any other, similar services which really belong in
the X server.  In light of their recent licensing shenanigans, though,
it does not appear that they are too excited about working with us.
That's a shame, as doing this stuff in user space means that you are
basically destroying X.  You're just turning it into a pixelation service
and making it even _less_ standardized.  In light of the calcification
of the X standard, though, I don't really see how we have any choice.
Again, if I knew anyone in any position of authority at Sun, HP, DEC,
or any of the rest, I would call them up and beg them to get together
with the free software community so that they, too, can benefit from the
work that we are doing on this front.  We all lose when we are forced
to go our own way like this, and it really sucks.

If any good comes out of it, it is that the xfsft code and the rest can
retain a true free software license.  I'm pretty sure we'd be willing to
lose it in order to make it a standard, but we probably won't have to.
Since the mainstream unix vendors appear uninterested in making use of
our efforts in this area, then screw 'em: GPL taint everything we do.

--
Todd Graham Lewis            32°49'N,83°36'W          (800) 719-4664, x2804
******Linux******         MindSpring Enterprises      tlewis@mindspring.net