[Fontconfig] libxft2 kerning difficulty

[Dan Egnor]

> Without bytecode hinting, the spacing is pretty random.  You can download 
> the freetype sources (apt-get source) and then edit the 
> include/freetype/config/ftoption.h file to enable it.

Isn't that illegal, since I don't have a patent license from Apple?

Besides, I don't understand why this requires hinting.  I'm just trying 
to predict the width of the actual pixels that are going to be drawn.  I
can do this after the fact by looking at what happened on the screen, so
surely the engine can also know what it's going to do before doing it?

(As is probably obvious, I know very little about TrueType rasterization.)

Dan