LSB-Futures Tracker - freetype
Current status of freetype in the LSB Futures process
Disclaimer
Abstract Freetype 2 is a software font engine that is designed to be small, efficient, highly customizable and portable while capable of producing high-quality output (glyph images). It can be used in graphics libraries, display servers, font conversion tools, text image generation tools.
Version $Revision: 1.1 $
Generated $Date: 2005/11/09 11:28:31 $
Phase 1 - Identification
Status Active
Group Desktop
Number #043
Assigned: 2005-09-29
Original requestor: Pradosh Adoni
Demand Maybe
fontconfig uses freetype-2 and directs a dependency to Xlib (for freetype2) which is an essential component of X11R6.8.2 considered for the "Desktop"
License Yes

FreeType 2 is released under two open-source licenses: its own BSD-like FreeType License and the GPL. It can thus be used by any kind of projects, be they proprietary or not.

http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html clearly states that Freetype 2 is NOT affected by any patents, hence there is no hindrance legally or in licensing.

Bestpractice Yes
Freetype 1 provides libttf.so, similar functions but is not used upstream by fontconfig or other applications (due to patent issues related to its bytecode parser.) Other possible candidates like GL_ttf, SDL_ttf have themselves been deprecated by "freetype". GL_ttf has moved development to FTGL (which depends on freetype). SDL_ttf continues to provide ttf support for SDL applications alone. None stand out as strong alternate candidates.
Stable Unknown
Depends Yes
  • libc (LSB)
  • libz (LSB)
Phase 2 - Investigation
Rationale
Upstream Unknown
Distros
Versions Maybe
The current upstream stable series is 2.1
  • upstream - 2.1.10
  • Mandriva 10 - 2.1.10
  • OpenSuSe - 2.1.10
  • RHEL 4.0 - 2.1.9
  • SuSe 9.3 - 2.1.9
  • Ubuntu 5.04 - 2.1.7
  • NLD9 SP2 - 2.1.7
Patches Maybe
patches to support deprecated API which were provided by distro are finally upstream and now are part of stable 2.1.10
I18n
Resources
Phase 3 - Implementation
Db
Spec
Test
Devel
Sample
Appbat
Notes
Return to main candidate tracker page
Last generated on Wed Nov 9 11:20:32 2005 GMT.