[HarfBuzz] Any comments on ISO OFFS (ISO 14496-22 & ISO 9541-4)

[mpsuzuki at hiroshima-u.ac.jp]

Hi,

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:08:31 +0200
Lars Knoll <lars at trolltech.com> wrote:
>> Do HarfBuzz developers have any comment on the standardization?
>
>There is one thing I would like to point out: A small part of the standard has 
>some patent restrictions on it (see http://www.freetype.org/patents.html). It 
>would be nice to finally get a clarification from Apple on the issue, as I 
>don't think as standard such as OpenType (especially if it's going to be part 
>of ISO) should have patent restrictions on it. Maybe a standards body as the 
>MPEG-4 committee can achieve something here.

Thank you for comment. Yes, the patent is the most
important issue around TrueType technology. I expect
ISO committee could achieve some conclusion, but I'm
slightly pessimistic about MPEG-4 people's activity.
Because, there is MPEG-LA but their licensing system for
MPEG-4 has been unclear for a long time. In 2002, they
had ever answered to EuroLinux as "the patents that will
constitute the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License
support the charging of royalties on the use of MPEG-4
Visual streams in Europe. ... Details of the actual license
agreement are still being worked out", and no follow-up
stories.
http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr18.html?LANG=en

I've already reported the hinting patent issue to
Dr. Komachi, a chief member of ISO 9541.

>> So, I'm afraid, the approving OpenType font format v1.4
>> itself does not support to implement portable OpenType
>> renderer. More detailed specification is required, even
>> if it's just another approval of Microsoft implementation.
>> (there can be a nightmare: a MPEG-4 video player including
>> Uniscribe can show closed caption correctly, but others
>> cannot. Oops)
>
>Uniscribe is not the only implementation that implements the script specific 
>rules. Qt and Pango both implement the same rules for their text layouting 
>engines, as far as I know ICU also has some support for them.

Thank you for giving overview. I guess, the reason why
Qt, Pango (and ICU) follow the rules for Uniscribe is
to utilize/divert the OpenType font products designed
for Uniscribe (and "replace-ability", if there's).
If there's something I miss out, please let me know.

Regards,
mpsuzuki