The code was written by the freetype author, not Adobe or Google (i.e. they employed the freetype author for a little while to implement the changes they wanted into freetype).

I do believe that the patches from http://www.infinality.net/blog/infinality-freetype-patches/ are being slowly merged into freetype. In the meantime, use the infinality patches. They make a huge, huge difference.

I agree. This is me playing the new Tomb Raider: http://mathsci.ucd.ie/~plynch/eniac/ENIAC.jpg

It's slow as shit :(

Score: 0 out of 6.

A (very) belated response. I echo your sentiments. Small steps do make a difference. If this specific project doesn't make a difference, then so be it. But, the steps are being made and others can follow those few "small" and tentative steps into the unknown. So, even if the project is a "flop" it's not a failure. It's time for change and I think (I really do) that the momentum has been gathered and more and more progress will be made in this revolution of education, access to knowledge and learning. What a wonderful time to be alive.

My thoughts exactly. Which is why I didn't hesitate to pledge. As I said in my comment I don't really care about the final quality of the book (well, I do, but it's not my main reason for pledging). I put my $ into the project because of each point you listed. I support the idea, the ethos and those behind the project. In my opinion text books should no longer be expensive and "closed". I feel the same way about academic journal papers. So, my pledge was not so much about getting this book done but, instead, a vote for the idea.

So this is the third time I've "put my money where my mouth says." I wrote a book and published it as CC also (and it took about 9 months to write) and I am proud to support this shift in direction for academic and textbook publishing.

Pledged ($50). I don't care if the book turns out crap or not; more people should release books in this manner (IMO) so the decision to pledge was very easy.

So, Akonadi and Nepomuk are the reasons you don't use KDE4? Just disable them. I have to admit that I used Linux almost exclusively from 1994 until 2005 and semi-exclusively from 2006-2007 (I needed to dualboot 2005, 2007 because apps I needed were not up-to-scratch in Linux as I changed hobbies and got very much into photography). I kept Linux installed from 2007-2010 but my primary OS was Windows. I couldn't use Linux because I hated Gnome and KDE was a little bit unstable. In 2011 I deleted Linux from my machine altogether -- it was like saying goodbye to an old friend. In 2012 I just couldn't resist installing it again and did so. I tried Ubuntu at first. Gnome. Hate it. Did I say how much I hate Gnome? I've hated it since the year 1999 or whenever it was I first encountered the horrid beast. In 2000 you installed it and there was a huge fucking foot (maybe 64x64 pixels) placed by default in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. Fortunately there was Windowmaker and KDE. I couldn't entirely commit to KDE at that time because of licensing concerns, but it was a darn sight better than Gnome. Anyway at that time I used neither and just stuck with windowmaker. I think it was around 2006 that I switched to KDE. Not sure of the exact year and used it happily until KDE 4 came along. No big deal, I thought -- I'll just stick with version 3. But no, it was all a big trainwreck with (kde-based) distros requiring unstable and useless and shit KDE 4. It was basically impossible to use KDE3. But, KDE did and has basically matured. I use it daily now. It's relatively fast, looks nice (to me) and does what I want it to. I hope the KDE4-5 transition is a lot less painful compared to the KDE3-4 transition.

So, I glance through the article and notice: [...]so KDE Applications are now less “special” in the Qt world — a good thing for portability.[...]. Without even having to scroll and just 2 paragraphs later I see there is a cool embedded video. Might be interesting. But, I gaze at it.

I'm not going to press play. I just stare.

void main (void) { gl_FragColor = vec4(0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.6); }

I am so glad they are focussing on portability.

We have different goals and expectations, that's all. For playing music and looking websites or reading some text, sure lump them together. For other tasks I am going to choose quality over quantity (of features) every time. YMMV :)

I don't even have a mobile (cell) phone. I think my collection of gadgets is about the same.

Anyway, the more important question is "what is the sacrifice you are making by embracing multi-purpose devices?" A DSLR will produce better photos than your iPhone (or whatever). A point-n-click camera will also. A dedicated scanner is likely to produce a better scan than a scanner tacked on to a printer. I could find examples relevant to the other examples as well but there is no point because they are easy to find. I, personally, would prefer a dedicated "gadget" that does one thing and does it well over a gadget that does many things but with less quality. YMMV.

I have done this as well! I also don't use the internet.

Actually I am pretty sure that font rendering under Windows is in kernel space, so conceivably simply displaying a font could be an effective attack vector; i.e. I don't think that an exploit relying at least partially the font rendering system is beyond the realm of possibility.

Even displaying a PDF (or rendering fonts for that matter -- they are code as well in most instances these days) is the browser executing something.

Server-side C or C++ work fine. But then there is the problem that the server is executing the code so most website servers wouldn't be able to handle the load. The alternative is for the client to do the processing which is fraught with danger. It's one of the reasons that I've always been averse to client-side execution from the start but, pragmatically, there is no way around it. Web-browsers these days are more like virtual machines than anything else.