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#51 2008-04-30 23:28:22
- robbel
- Member
- Registered: 2006-05-17
- Posts: 9
Re: the best lcd packages
ekerazha: thanx for that..
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#52 2008-05-01 01:54:43
- sajro
- Member
- Registered: 2008-03-02
- Posts: 56
Re: the best lcd packages
but David Turner (the guy behind it) is worried that this might infringe an MS patent.
You can do that? Just because it implements the same technology (even without the same code), you could technically sue him? I knew that law here in the U.S. was FUBAR. but WOW! That's just...absurd. That's like saying "OMG! Microsoft made an email server!@!@ The guy who started Sendmail should sue!"
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#53 2008-05-01 05:33:10
- Mr Green
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- From: U.K.
- Registered: 2003-12-21
- Posts: 5,896
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Re: the best lcd packages
Never tried any of them? do they make a difference? I set fonts in Gnome 86 dots per inch Hinting Full Subpixel RGB
19 inch tft set to 1280x1024
Mr Green
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#54 2008-05-01 20:37:42
- dunc
- Member
- From: Glasgow, UK
- Registered: 2007-06-18
- Posts: 559
Re: the best lcd packages
dunc wrote:but David Turner (the guy behind it) is worried that this might infringe an MS patent.
You can do that? Just because it implements the same technology (even without the same code), you could technically sue him? I knew that law here in the U.S. was FUBAR. but WOW! That's just...absurd. That's like saying "OMG! Microsoft made an email server!@!@ The guy who started Sendmail should sue!"
Kind of, yes. The point is that it's a patent issue, not copyright. Patents relate to ideas, copyright to actual intellectual work. As I understand it (and I haven't looked into it much more than reading Turner's own comments) the idea of fully rendering and hinting a string of glyphs at the subpixel level may be subject to an MS patent relating to Cleartype. The actual code is irrelevant, although obviously if he did use the same code, that would be a copyright violation as well.
This is why software patents are such a controversial issue, because software can be seen either as a product whose basic design and function is subject to patents, or as a written work that is subject to copyright in and of itself. Open-source advocates tend to look favourably on copyright, ironically - the GPL relies on the fact that the original authors of code licenced under it have the copyright to share in the first place, and to withold if the Licence is broken - and down on patents: ideas should be free, but their implementation is rightly the property of the authors, who should share it, but are free not to. Proprietary vendors, on the other hand, seem to want it both ways.
For Turner I think it's a case of not wanting to open that can of worms, rather than knowing for sure that MS can stop him.
Last edited by dunc (2008-05-01 20:48:11)
0 Ok, 0:1
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