Re: Freetype byte code interpreter

Hi Ryan,
Glad you have taken an interest in looking at FontForge and the possibility 
of adding it to MacPorts.

On November 6, 2013 07:45:23 PM Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> Is there a reason why fontforge doesn’t always use this technology now
> that there is no longer a legal reason not to?

FontForge is a gigantic program weighing in at more than 650,000 lines of 
code and it's really a case of manpower versus trying to put-out what seems 
to be the most important fires first, and what we developers can tackle based 
on our knowledge of FontForge and areas of expertise.

Speaking for myself, this isn't even on my radar of things to do yet and at 
this time I've mainly been hitting lone/single-routines trying to make them 
a bit more robust, fail safe, and with the possibility of extra 
functionality before even trying to look at larger routines yet.
This is somewhat a bottom-up approach....but that's just my approach.

Other developers are attacking various other parts of FontForge with 
different purposes and methods depending on their needs, interest, 
knowledge, and the results they are looking to accomplish.

Between all of us interested in helping improve FontForge, it seems 
FontForge has been making some gradual improvements.

but the short answer to your question is - manpower.

> How should we package fontforge in MacPorts with regard to the byte code
> interpreter? Currently we give users the option to turn it on, and
> default to off, but the decision to have it behave that way predates
> the expiration of the patents.

Looking at your answer here, seems you already have a plan of action in 
terms of what would need to be done. Are you interested in submitting some 
sort of pull request with proposed changes so that those interested in 
trying it out, can try it out?
https://github.com/fontforge/fontforge/pulls

Thanks,
Joe

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