Truth Behind the ClearType/OpenSUSE FUD

Kennon writes "Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols over at Linux Watch clears up the FUD around Tuesday's Slashdot discussion concerning OpenSUSE, ClearType, and patent deals with Microsoft."

ClearType

I think ClearType is a great idea

Re:

I have to second that. For some reason I regularly forget this. Then I start using someone else's Windows computer, and I suddenly realize how nice my own desktop is. This is also one of the places where Fedora truly outshines Knoppix. KDE's transpare

What a novel idea

To come up with an idea, prevent others from working on it, and to claim all work in the area as their own property. And make claims of future work as well: "more patents to come." Sounds like pirating to me. Microsoft is raping and pillaging the software community.

Re:They didn't invent clear type, Steve Wozniak di

Well except the sub pixel anti-aliasing they claim as their invention was invented by Steve Wozniak a couple of decades earlier.

I think it was even earlier than that, there were some links in yesterday's discussion to what looks like exactly the same feature, being investigated by Xerox even earlier. The prior art on at least the most general concepts of this (subpixel rendering by switching on individual Red, Green, or Blue color elements in a display) seems pretty damning.

But then again, the prior art against Microsoft's FAT patents was pretty damning too, and it even went through two USPTO reviews that said the patents should be invalidated, but at the 11th hour there was an additional review and suddenly they were "novel and non-obvious" again. Makes you wonder exactly Microsoft has by the short hairs that made a phone call to smooth things over... If they really need these patents, they'll never be overturned regardless of the obviousness of the prior art; the patent system is too thoroughly corrupt.

Changed Before the Microvell Deal

This change was last summer, pre-microvell, so the news actually would have been if OpenSUSE was enabling it and taking advantage of MS' patent covenant for Novell customers and OpenSUSE contributors while other distros couldn't.

MS' plan to fragment the community is only effective if Novell has customers and developers supporting them, otherwise the covenant is irrelevant. Boycott Novell, the rest takes care of itself.

Re:Changed Before the Microvell Deal

if Novell has customers and developers supporting them

You reap what you sow. Novell exposed themself to any FUD by going to bed with MS. Now everything they do (whatever it will be FOSS friendly or commercial) will be taken into MS deal context. It will just get harder and harder to wash off mud thrown by others.

Not that I think FUD is a weapon FOSS supporters should use. But a bit of paranoia is healthy. :-P

Re:

First you say FUD is natural and to be expected. OK. Then you actually say it's healthy? Whatever happened to passing informed judgement?

Re:Changed Before the Microvell Deal

This change was last summer, pre-microvell, so the news actually would have been if OpenSUSE was enabling it and taking advantage of MS' patent covenant for Novell customers and OpenSUSE contributors while other distros couldn't.

Yes. I submitted the previous story about this matter, and I stand corrected. I didn't know everything about the issue; I relied on the sources reporting on it, and mainly, the whole matter seemed suspicious, and I thought posting it to Slashdot would shine some light on it. Not 100% sure if doing so had an influence, but what matters in the end is that things are now clarified.

From my standpoint, the interesting issue that remains is what I mentioned in the little comment at the end of my submission for the previous story: ok, assuming there are MS patents on this technology, isn't Novell licensed to use them now (even if it "isn't a patent license", but it just acts like one)? Apparently the Microsoft-Novell deal doesn't help openSUSE out much with regard to MS patents. Is the same true for SUSE?

Re:

This wasn't a cross patent license between them, just an agreement not to sue each others customers. They can still sue the hell out of each other for patent infringement. Both Novell and Microsoft have large patent portfolios so it's a bit like the cold

Re:

Your two statements seem to contradict each other. If Novell doesn't embed technologies covered by MS patents, then there isn't any real reason to boycott them. MS' plan only works if Novell does embed those technologies.

Re:

MS' plan to fragment the community

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but I call shennanigans... the "community" is going to fragment itself more with GPLv3 than anything Microsoft could have dreamed of. (Maybe Microsoft has been subliminally encouraging Stallman to

Not everything is a conspiracy

However, Lowry continued, "In this specific case, the ClearType font is supplied as part of the freetype2 package; last summer the upstream maintainer changed the package's default settings to disable Clear Type and thereby avoid possibly relevant Microsoft patents. So, consistent with Novell's preexisting practices and current policy, Novell is using the default settings established by the upstream maintainer. Distributions such as Fedora made the same choice. This issue only came up in the summer of 2006 and therefore older distributions are using the previous default (enabled ClearType)."

So it would seem that the disabling of FreeType is more coincident than anything else. It's possible for parallel processes to affect the same thing but have no overt connection.

One good invention in the past decade

Microsoft has come up with some outstanding products and inventions over the years:

1. 1991: Word for Windows 2.0
2. 1992: Excel 4.0
3. 1993: Visual Basic 3.0
4. 1996: Windows NT 4.0
5. 2001: ClearType

Notice any clustering of the dates? With hundreds of billions in revenue, all they can produce in over a decade is ClearType? Let them have it -- we'll live with seeing our font pixels.

Microsoft didn't invent this idea.

Microsoft may have a patent on ClearType, but they didn't invent it. We did the same thing in the Commodore 64 days with regards to fonts in graphics. I clearly recall zooming in on text and seeing different colors in the transition from text to background. I've spent many hundred hours doing graphic arts on the Commodore 64 and have been published.

I guess prior art doesn't apply to patents anymore?

"Sub-pixel font rendering with Free&Clear - Microsoft says they invented their "ClearType" technology, but I quickly and independently "invented" the same thing . . . as had others who came years before. It is very cool, but rather obvious. "

http://www.grc.com/ct/cleartype.htm [grc.com]

Re:

You were seeing the phosphors on a CRT. Totally different animal.

Re:

I guess prior art doesn't apply to patents anymore?

If you would bother to read the patents, you would see that the techniques that Microsoft is patenting here have ZERO to do with the color-clock splitting that we had on the old Atari and Apple machines ba

I got ya patent *right here*

Ballmer asked his lawyers for a patent on his peener
The prototype was quarter scale and looked like a pipe cleaner
Prior art be damned! He told the counsels - get to working!
I can prove it's novel just by bellowing and jerking!

What file are those comments in?

I did a 'less * | grep ClearType' in several of the directories in the FreeType source tree, and could not find the mentioned files.

Anyone know where they are at?

Re:

Thanks, I have 2.2.1 and I got:

freetype2 > egrep -ri "cleartype" * | less -S
work/freetype-2.2.1/ChangeLog.20: `ClearType-like' rendering.

so, it doesn't appear to be there either.

Re:

RTFA and my comment, so that you can understand why I searched for that and why your comment is irrelevant in regards to mine.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

SuSE Bashing aside, this affects MANY distros

First off, despite the popularity of bashing SuSE these days, most or all "purist" linux distros do the same thing, this is not just a Novell/SuSE issue. By "purist", I am referring to distros which try to stay as close to 100% open source and patent-infringment-free as possible. Fedora is the prime example of such a distro, even more so than SuSE. On whole, fedora is even more conservative than SuSE, and also has Freetype compiled in its non-patent-infringing way, yet, hypocritically, none of the SuSE bashers are bashing Fedora over this.

Second, the deal between Novell and Microsoft regarding patents was an agreement not to sue Novell's customers over patent infringement. While this might be viewed as a "patent license", it is not an explicit license and thus very limited. The implication is that it would only cover inadvertent patent violations, for example by redistributing someone elses software. Novell probably still has an obligation not to infringe any patents that it has not been granted an explicit license to use.

Software Patents outside the US

Not all countries recognise software patents, so i assume this patents doesnt apply in all countries.

Why do we force software patents on people who live in non-software patent countries ?

Re:

Because then companies in those countries would have a competitive advantage over ones in the patent encumbered ones. That just wouldn't be fair.

Re:

Most [English] Linux distributions are based in the US (or in another country where software patents are enforced), so they try to stay clean. If someone made a Linux distro along the mindset of MPlayer (i.e., fuck patents) in a country where software pat

OS X's subpixel rendering? Adobe's "CoolType"?

It's not as if FreeType and MS' are the only subpixel technologies around; OS X has had it since version 10.3. Microsoft's isn't even particularly good, compared to the others.

At least the brouhaha, while a waste of energy and attention like all FUD, is strong evidence, if any more were required, that software patents are a bad idea.

Re:

If you know the positioning of each of the three dots, you can still do a certain amount of sub-pixel rendering, just not in quite the same way. Doing some more research, I think this was just on the Apple II, which may well have used a trinitron tube and

Re:OS X's subpixel rendering? Adobe's "CoolType"?

You can still do sub-pixel AA on a CRT, you just can't use the same algorithm as on an LCD. The trick behind sub-pixel AA is to realise that any adjacent group of red green and blue emitters can be regarded as a pixel, not just those that are exposed as a pixel by the hardware. On an LCD, it's easy because you have a nice regular RGBRGBRGB pattern. You can trea a GBR, BRG or RGB run as a pixel, and just alter the colours for the hardware pixels to turn on the individual emitters as required. For CRTs, it's a little bit more difficult, but it's still possible.

The Headline is FUD

While the issue with ClearType is clearly not limited to Novell or SUSE (pick your flavor), that does not mean that Microsuck's patents are not an issue. This is an example of software patents affecting any users with a current distro.

While it turns

Re:This hurts my head

According to Microsoft's attorney, software patents are invalid in the US as well [patentlyo.com]:

MR. OLSON [For Microsoft]: The '580 patent is a program, as I understand it, that's married to a computer, has to be married to a computer in order to be patented.
JUSTICE SCALIA: You can't patent, you know, on-off, on-off code in the abstract, can you? MR. OLSON: That's correct, Justice Scalia.
JUSTICE SCALIA: There needs to be a device.
MR. OLSON: An idea or a principle, two plus two equals four can't be patented. It has to be put together with a machine and made into a usable device.

Re: This hurts my head

Can it not be argued, then, that program authors cannot be sued for patent infringement? They only write programs "in the abstract", they don't combine it with any device, neither explicitly nor implicitly. That's done by the end user at the time of runnin

Re:

Only if it's assumed (and legally able to be assumed) that they've compiled and run the program in the course of developing it.

Re:

Given that Microsoft has agreed not to sue Novell's customers over patent infringements then Novell just needs to have customers that do the compiling and testing of software for Novell.

Basically the coders just write code without testing and then check it

Re:

You can't sue an end user for patent infringement because they're not selling it or making a profit off of it. And if they are selling it, they're no longer the end user.

Its perfectly legal---and theoretically, encouraged---to take a patent and use it to b

Software patents at devices.

Unless you call the lcd monitor a device.... however looking at


Methods and systems for hinting fonts

A system for providing a hinted TrueType font comprising: one or more computer-readable media; one or more processors; computer-readable instructions on the

Re:

The problem isn't sub-pixel rendering in general (if it was, any anti-aliasing feature would be covered by these patents). ClearType [wikipedia.org] is taking avantake of the way of drawing pixels LCDs use (red, green, blue standing next to each other instead of being mix

Re:This hurts my head

There seems to be a confusion of terminology in the above, but I admit I may be misreading it.

Anti-aliasing is not the same thing as sub-pixel rendering, which is orthogonal to anti-aliasing and can be (and almost always is) combined with it.

Anti-aliasing is merely the use of different shades to adjust the sharpness of object boundaries, where the shade is based upon the amount of a pixel the objects covering that pixel would intersect. While this sounds like something that would be describable by the term "sub-pixel rendering" if, for a moment, you assume you would divide the pixel into smaller virtual pixels to calculate the end result, that's not what sub-pixel rendering refers to. The term "sub-pixel" is not being used to describe these smaller "virtual pixels".

In an LCD a pixel is made up of three "sub-pixels": real, discrete, lighting elements that together illuminate one complete pixel. The sub-pixels are the three primary colours and are almost always mounted side by side as three thin strips. Sub-pixel rendering is the technique of using the separate red, green, and blue sub-pixels of an LCD "pixel" in isolation to improve the sharpness of object boundaries. When used, the screen effectively has an increased horizonal resolution of 3x the regular resolution, so a 1400x1050 screen effectively becomes 4200x1050.

It is usually, if not always, used in conjunction with regular anti-aliasing (though technically it doesn't need to be.)

Microsoft's patents, as I understand it, cover the latter, and in particular focus on preventing "colour fringing" that is otherwise a major downside of using sub-pixel rendering.

Re:

Mod parent up! That is exactly right and the full scope can be found on Steve Gibson's ClearType pages [grc.com]. What they have patented is simple filtering of sub-pixel rendering. That is just a simple combination of two very old techniques, color filtering is use

Re:

It's interesting because the patent combines 2 existing techniques to increase apparent resolution on a hardware display. I'd argue firstly that it isn't novel, the only reason MS were able to get this patent is because early LCD costs were prohibitively e

Re:

That doesn't mean the feature didn't work. It just means the feature wasn't beneficial at that resolution. In other words, "It's not a bug, it's a feature!" =)

Re:

ClearType works wonderfully on my LCDs, much better with it enable than without it enabled. Worked wonderfully on my CRTs, when I used them, as well. Others report different results. Results, therefore, may vary.

Re:

I like Suse and Novell does a lot for open source, I hope they come through this arrangement ok, but I'm switched to Debian.

Re:Wonderful Practice

Since when is disagreeing with a companies business decisions not a good reason to stop using their products? That's kinda the only way for the public at large to keep corporations even remotely close to ethical (not that it always works). You may not agree that Novell has done anything worth boycotting them for, but isn't that up to their customers (in this case Linux users) to decide? You make your choice, and even try to make others see it your way, but don't knock the system. It may not be perfect, but it's all we got.

Re:

"You may not agree that Novell has done anything worth boycotting them for, but isn't that up to their customers (in this case Linux users) to decide?"
Customers yes. Linux user no. The people that download OpenSuse are not Novell customers.

But shouldn't pe

Re:

"You aren't making any sort of choice based on the merits of the system, just on politics and the fact that you dislike microsoft"

I feel that purchasing *anything is inherently political. You could go mad with guilt hunting down all the ramifications of ev

Re:Wonderful Practice

This all shows the wonderful practice of choosing systems based on gut reactions and petty politics.

Petty politics or genuine concern that Microsoft and Novell are preparing to give the FLOSS community a good shafting? It's all in the semantics.

If you switched, or spend appreciable time bashing or advocating a boycott of SuSE because of the Novell/MS deal, you are a moron. I'm sorry. You aren't making any sort of choice based on the merits of the system, just on politics and the fact that you dislike microsoft. The agreement is harmless to "the community." It's an indemnity agreement! That's about the most benign thing two companies could possibly sign.

No. That agreement is tantamount to Novell saying: 'yes, GNU/Linux does infringe upon Microsoft patents.' It gives Ballmer evidence to extort money [slashdot.org] from GNU/Linux users, will probably be used in future lawsuits by Microsoft and has been the basis of much anti-GNU/Linux FUD.

What is particularly bad for the community is the indemnity stops with the Novell customers, the development community is very much left out in the cold. I'm scared of releasing my code under a FLOSS license because of patent FUD. It might be an indemnity agreement, but it's a thinly veiled threat too.

The bad part is that the reaction (as we saw here, sometimes humorously disinformed) is unfairly hurting a valid (some would say good) choice in the linux market (choice is good!)

You speak of choice, yet the Microsoft/Novell deal has taken customers away from other distros [infoworld.com] (for all the wrong reasons). The whole point of the deal is to eliminate choice and leave Microsoft with just one competitor to deal with: Novell.

If a company kills babies, I'm not going to buy their products. In fact I'll actively make others aware of their actions, this is not petty, I would consider it my moral duty. As a geek Novell and Microsoft have done something far worse: gone against the spirit (if not the letter) of the GPL. It is therefore my moral duty to boycott their products and advise everyone (who would know what I'm talking about) to do the same.

Re:

If a company kills babies, I'm not going to buy their products. In fact I'll actively make others aware of their actions, this is not petty, I would consider it my moral duty. As a geek Novell and Microsoft have done something far worse: gone against the s

Re:

Depends on how you look at it. Microsoft is worth a couple of hundred billion dollars. That money came from somewhere (a market aberration, monopolistic practices etc). Now if that money had been used for other purposes no matter what marginal percentage y

Re:

Choice is great.

Yes, but making a choice buy ignoring certain information, such as the political decisions of the company you buy from, could shortcut your future.

Imagine if it were simpler: Suppose Company A made a great product but killed babies. And Company B made a

Re:ClearType draws from Apple II, says developer

Technologist Steve Gibson, a software developer and consultant whose claim to fame was inventing the light pen more than a decade ago

From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

The first light pen was used around 1957 on the Lincoln TX-0 computer at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Gibson was born in 1955 [wikipedia.org]. That's some fast work!

Re:

Gibson have a "Who Did It First?" text regarding sub-pixel rendering as well:

http://www.grc.com/ctwho.htm [grc.com]