> On a related note, a major thing Ubuntu and its derivatives have going for them is the great font rendering out of the box.
This. The default freetype rendering is horrible to my eyes, even worse than Microsoft's SmearType(TM).
> I wonder why other distributions haven't yet adopted it, or the Infinality patches, by default.
Patents, I guess. Quoting Wikipedia:
> Microsoft has several patents in the United States on subpixel rendering technology for text rendering on RGB Stripe layouts. This had caused FreeType, the library used by most current software on the X Window System, to disable this functionality by default. Apple was able to use it in Mac OS X due to a patent cross-licensing agreement.
I do not know if Canonical has reached a similar agreement with Microsoft like Apple. Perhaps someone from the Ubuntu camp can enlighten us.
This. The default freetype rendering is horrible to my eyes, even worse than Microsoft's SmearType(TM).
> I wonder why other distributions haven't yet adopted it, or the Infinality patches, by default.
Patents, I guess. Quoting Wikipedia:
> Microsoft has several patents in the United States on subpixel rendering technology for text rendering on RGB Stripe layouts. This had caused FreeType, the library used by most current software on the X Window System, to disable this functionality by default. Apple was able to use it in Mac OS X due to a patent cross-licensing agreement.
I do not know if Canonical has reached a similar agreement with Microsoft like Apple. Perhaps someone from the Ubuntu camp can enlighten us.