Re: Truetype fonts from XFree86 4.2?

> From: Nils Faerber <nils@kernelconcepts.de>
> Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 16:28:24 +0200
> To: Jim.Gettys@hp.com
> Cc: familiar@handhelds.org, gpe@handhelds.org
> Subject: Re: [Gpe] Truetype fonts from XFree86 4.2?
> -----
> On Tue, 3 Sep 2002 10:47:31 -0700 (PDT)
> Jim.Gettys@hp.com wrote:
> > Nils,
> Hello Jim (and others too of course!)
>
> > The Luxi fonts are freely redistributable, so long as they are not
> > modified; the fonts are from Chuck Bigelow; the license itself is in
> > the X distribution at xc/fonts/scaled/TTF/COPYRIGHT.BH.
>
> Thanks for clarification!
> OK then, what about packaging them up for Familiar?
> I would do it...

I'm not sure it is worth the effort yet, given the other irons in the fire.
Feel free, however, if it is a burning issue to you.

>
> > The issue with them is that they are not well hinted, and therefore
> > won't image nicely at low resolution. Getting fonts hinted for screen
> > usage costs about $10 U.S. per glyph; needless to say, this gets
> > expensive, quickly; the Luxi fonts were converted to ttf but not
> > manually hinted, and therefore won't do very well at the resolutions
> > we use.
>
> One remark on question:
>
> - given the $10 per glyph a whole font wouldn't be THAT expensive... we
> would need less than 256 glyphs per font which makes << $2k5. Given the
> enomous benefit this sounds reasonable. In all we would need about four
> basic fonts which makes roughly $10k. A lot for a human but not so much
> for bigger companies (hint hint :)

The Windows Glyph list is ~560 glyphs; and then you have N faces in each
family. Or were you planning to leave out much of the world?

It is not clear there are open source tools for TTF hinting (I could easily
be wrong); but getting the experience to do good hinting is to my knowledge,
not currently in the community.

>
> - What does "so long as they are not modified" mean more specifically?
> Does it also mean that we would not be allowed to manually hint them if
> we wanted? Else we could try to do so ourselves using pfaedit; a really
> excellent font tool!

You'd need to work with Chuck Bigelow: he wants/demands artistic control
and would have to approve any changes. When I talked to Chuck, he'd be
happy if someone hinted the fonts, but that is alot of manual work
(that is where the $10/glyph number comes from). To do the whole family
is in the $100,000 range. It isn't something he can fund out of his pocket:
he was very kind to donate the fonts in the first place. And it is enough
money that I don't know where to get it given the current economy this
instant: it is a backup plan if other alternatives fall through.

>
> > I also checked with our lawyer here, and given that we do not charge
> > for familiar/gpe, he says we're on sound footing to continue to
> > redistribute the Microsoft screen fonts, as the Microsoft license
> > permits redistribution in that case.
>
> OK, well, that's a nice workaround for now but I don't like this
> solution very much:

Nor do I.

>
> 1. We are still dependant on M$
> 2. The installation procedure of a Linux iPaq has to unpack the M$
> package, i.e. we cannot repackage them as ipkg 3. Value added resellers
> cannot fully install an iPaq with Linux since they would "redistribute"
> the fonts for money.
>
> This way we'll never make a product out of it...
>
> > I'm trying to wrap up a deal right now for another set of well hinted
> > fonts that won't have any strings attached. When I can say more, I
> > will; I hope this will be sometime in the next month or so.
>
> Huray!
> That would be great, let's hope for the best!

Yup. You'll certainly hear if this all gells.

                                - Jim

--
Jim Gettys
Cambridge Research Laboratory
HP Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company
Jim.Gettys@hp.com