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Interface InnoTek`s font-engine

Started by miturbide, 2007.05.17, 04:56:14

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miturbide

Supporting thread for the Interface InnoTek`s font-engine bounty. The original and old bounty thread can be found here.

Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

warpcafe

#1
Hi there,

today I am writing to admit that there will not be any "new" version of feffer.
The reason for this is quite simple that I have discovered "ft2gui" by Herwig Bauernfeind (quite some time ago).
The short story is all about avoiding to reinvent the wheel and create unneeded "flavors" of the same thing.

Herwig's program is

  • much more mature
  • a damn lot prettier
  • more sophisticated in general
than feffer would perhaps ever be. :)

Also, Herwig has extensive documentation and help files with it, it can install the "better" Freetype library if required to do so and - talking about instaling- comes as a WPI package.

In case you don't know it - I urge you to check it out: http://members.aon.at/herwig.bauernfeind/os2.html
(it's one of the first mentioned programs on his page - the link will give a ftp-like directory view for download)

What's this all about? Quite simple:
I am officially requesting the bounty to be given to Herwig! Up yours!

We mailed a couple of times in the past and he is aware of the bounty here but didn't dare to apply for it since he thinks that his program is not 100% ready (I would say he's right, it's "only" 99,5% ready... :) ). Enough kidding - he deserves it. And I am sure that if Herwig gets the bounty, he will continue to improve the program.

Some folks may complain "but feffer can do this... and that... which Herwigs program can't".
Sure? The only thing here that comes to my mind is feffers ability to also add a program from the list of running processes instead of only browsing for it. Also, when enabling ft2 support for a program, feffer cross-checks the process list to see if that program is currently active (and displays a warning). But that's it AFAIK.
( @Herwig: If you read this (hi!) I think sputils.dll als contains the required calls for the process list stuff... ;) )

And as I said - I am sure Herwig would incorporate requests if they make sense.
My "silent" hope is that Herwig may consider releasing ft2gui "to the public", e.g. as a netlabs project. This way, I could chip in with support and bugfixes in case Herwig is too busy with other things. I really would like to participate in improving ft2gui for it#s the "perfect mach" for the task given.

But now I need your support folks:
It's not my right to take this decision on my own. I know that the following people are involved at least:

  • The OS/2 user group Sweden sponsored this bounty
  • Robert (Henschel, Warp5?) created a nifty DLL (even if we didn't use it, he also had his share here!) which is still available to the public at hobbes (it's a "spin-off deliverable" from this bounty if you want to call it that way)
  • Gregory L. (gregg) Marx came up with the initial idea ("years ago!" ;) )
  • cris (don't recall the real name) was one of the first users / testers
  • Andy (abwillis) also was one of the first users / testers

All of you guys - are you happy with considering to give the bounty to Herwig?
If yes (we can make a poll...) I would get in contact with the Sponsors (os2ug Sweden) to officially request the bounty to be paid to Herwig.

I want to see at least ONE bounty getting closed again. :)

Cheers,
Thomas

"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Saijin_Naib

I find the FT2 to be a much better solution than Innotek's. The kerning of the fonts is more proper (granted not anti-aliased) and they just look much cleaner over all.

I'd love to see this further developed to completely replace IFE and be intergrated into the system. Perhaps even anti-alias can be implemented at a later time. Even if not, having the fonts kern right is more important.

warpcafe

Hi,

well, the bounty is not about FT2 vs. IFE... it's about a GUI way to handle the IFE settings.

Hmm, perhaps I got you wrong and you are aware of this but just wanted to join the growing list of people that are not too satisfied with IFE's side effects (to not call it "adverse reactions"...).

But anyway, what I understand from your posting is that you would get more benefit from ft2gui than from feffer since ft2gui is "FT2-aware" since it's shipped along with it ;) Okay.

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

abwillis

I have used Herwig's program as well as feffer.  I like both.  For my part, if you feel that Herwig deserves it then I certainly don't have a dog in the fight :) 
I don't really have any part in determining who gets the bounty but I do like Herwig's work in general as well as in this particular.
Andy

warpcafe

Thanks Andy!
Hopefully the others will also give a feedback soon.

Regards,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Saijin_Naib

Yes, sorry my mistake WarpCafe. I mis-understood the bounty.

miturbide

Hi

Herwig Bauernfeind had formally claimed this bounty.

The program is available at:
http://members.aon.at/herwig.bauernfeind/ft2gui/index.html

According the Herwig this will be an open source project in netlabs and soon the source code will be there.

Any comments from the community and the sponsors are welcome on this forum.

Plus if anybody wants to donate more money to this bounty the paypla button still active at the bounty page.
http://www.os2world.com/content/view/334/71/
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

warpcafe

Hi,

I cannot but emphasize again that I am more than okay with giving the bounty to Herwig.
I am using his software myself and I talked about it with him... if he is making this OpenSource at Netlabs, I could even start adding features that people might miss compared to Feffer... it's vx-rexx ;)

So - YES YES YES! Out with the bucks!! :))

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

herwigb

Thanks to Adrian from netlabs TRAC and SVN are up and running for open source VX-REXX applications.

http://svn.netlabs.org/vxapps/wiki

As you can see, I open-sourced FT2GUI Versions 1.0.3 and 2.0 beta3 already.

I hope many more VX-REXX projects will follow and I hope this wont be a private party of mine for too long.
Kind regards,
HerwigB.

miturbide

Hi herwigb

About the source code, is there any specific rules that apply on how to use it, or any open source license applied to it.

Thanks.
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

herwigb

Martin,

I noticed during uploading one of the other projects that this was missing - there is none at the moment, I will add one.
Kind regards,
HerwigB.

herwigb

Hi,

I decided that the LGPL might be the best for these programs.
License files and headers uploaded to the svn.
Kind regards,
HerwigB.

diver

what happened to this bounty? almost a month ago Herwig added the license info, but it's still not payed out. sometimes i really feel this bounty system does not work.

regards
Silvan

miturbide

Hi Silvan

I'm in charge of the bounty system.

About this bounty I had requested his paypal account and he haven't replied to be me yet so the funds can be transfer.

Martin
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com