[Gllug] More Microsoft patents

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Thu, 2003-02-13 at 11:56, Tethys wrote:
> 
> least). Making fonts programs was a deliberate design decision by Adobe
> to provide font foundries with stronger copyright protection than they
> would otherwise have had from just outline data.

Yes, but IMO it was a deliberate attempt to suborn the copyright
statutes. The intent of the law as regards typefaces was clear. By
ensuring that the fonts were "programs" Adobe manged to find a way in
which they could subvert the intent of the law. At the end of the day,
it would have been trivial (and probably more logical) for the
executable code to reside in the font renderer, not in the fonts
themselves.

> But aside from that, the fact that they're programs gives you extra
> flexibility that wouldn't be available with pure outline data.

They could have embedded hinting data that was more than pure outline
data into the fonts while still leaving the executable portions of the
system in the renderer.

Mike.


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