I found this article mentioned on Slashdot. I've stated in the past that the main reason I don't like using Linux as my main development environment is that I find the fonts hard to read. My eyes are horrible, especially after long stints writing code. Windows for some reason just looks so much better, especially on LCD screens.
Well, the reason Windows looks better is their ClearType technology. After reading the article I tried turning it off, and sure enough, Windows sucked too.
Apparently the fuss over ClearType and FreeType, Linux's font technology, has to deal with patents that Microsoft holds on the techniques behind ClearType. With all the anti-Novell/Microsoft clauses in the GPLv3 dealing with patent protection and the essential prohibition on it, I've lost all hope. Despite what Richard Stallman may wish, Microsoft will likely never extend patent protection on ClearType to all of the Linux community which means they will have to pick the other route, i.e. to none of the community.
Which is really too bad. As much as I thank the FSF and GPL for giving us all those great GNU tools, I'm afraid that their conviction to ideals will also stunt the growth of open source, and especially Linux. The FSF may hate software patents, but they are a fact of life. And if the two worlds can't mix, then the poor user pays a price, one way or the other.
I'm not sure it's EFF/GNU's fault; if another company were to have a patent on C compilation that made it faster, you wouldn't be able to include that as per the CDT and getting it past the Eclipse legal process, would you? After all, Eclipse can't legally ship GPL code; one might argue that that's limiting user choice and that Eclipse should consider relaxing its stance on inclusion of GPL libraries.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this is just hypothetical; the fact is that another company owns patents which their software would otherwise use. The person who actually gets hurt is the user; the person who is doing the hurting is the patent owner, not the software.
(It's also a very good argument *against* software patents, because they limit innovation and choice)
Do you have an LCD screen? I've finally had to ditch all my CRT's since I find everything blurry no matter which OS. I guess I'm just getting old or something.
ReplyDeleteDoug, you need a Linux distro that does not come from the US. :) One od my colleague said that in RedHat and SuSE he had to recompile stuff to make fonts look nice. However, he tried Kubuntu recently and it just worked.
ReplyDeleteDoug, I think you should try to disable font hinting.
ReplyDeleteThere are visual tools to do it in KDE and Gnome settings, it can also be done directly in your ~/.fonts.conf file.
< match target="font" >
< edit mode="assign" name="hinting" >
< bool >false< /bool >
< /edit >
< /match >
The result is really similar to OSX font rendering. (I also have Lucida Grande installed directly from an iBook...)
Interesting... I find it the other way around. ClearType looks horrible on my LCD at work so I turn it off. Kubuntu Linux is razor sharp for me. I don't think ClearType is any remarkable technology.
ReplyDeleteFollowing gunnar's point, since about 85% of the land surface area of the planet does not recognise or allow software patents then, for those of us who live on that land, there are rather fewer problems...
ReplyDeleteMany in the US would of course think this terrible, but then we avoid the nonsense of things like the Amazon 1-Click Patent and the general move towards patenting "anything that moves".
"The FSF may hate software patents, but they are a fact of life."
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the problem. Software patents are in no way a "fact of life". They are just a construct established in some countries on the world. Others live happy without them. Perhaps this minority of countries is just wrong about this issue and should change?
That's what the FSF tries to do: Change things that went wrong, and not just arrange with them and get the best piece of the cake left.
"As much as I thank the FSF and GPL for giving us all those great GNU tools, I'm afraid that their conviction to ideals will also stunt the growth of open source"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Stallman doesn't really care about technological advances at all. He cares much about whatever "Freedom" that he defines to be much more important over anything.