Oracle JDK vs. OpenJDK: font engine differences

Wed Nov 15 05:56:24 UTC 2017

Hi *,

Thanks for all the information!

> The migration from T2K to Freetype still has to take place and I
> expect there will be occasional rendering and measurement
> differences which will be considered incompatibilities but it is
> inevitable and unavoidable.

Do you have any idea on the timeline? Even something as vague as
"definitely not in the next 12 months" would be helpful.

Is there a specific bug / feature / mailing list that I can watch to stay
up to date on this migration specifically?

> Maybe it would be worth while thinking about the inclusion of an
> open-source, high-quality, Unicode-complete (well as much as
> possible :) font family into the OpenJDK

Google Noto fonts are open source and collectively have very nice Unicode
coverage...

Not sure if they're considered high-quality, but some of them were designed
in collaboration with Adobe.

https://www.google.com/get/noto/

Take care,

Daniel

On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 12:18 PM, Volker Simonis <volker.simonis at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Phil,
>
> thanks for the clarifications.
>
> On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 5:52 PM, Phil Race <philip.race at oracle.com> wrote:
> > Hi Volker,
> >
> > I don't think there is a claim anywhere  that JDK 10 EA "Oracle JDK"
> > binaries have
> > already migrated to be GPL binaries.
> >
>
> I didn't asserted that there is such a claim. I just noticed that T2K
> is still used in Oracle's JDK 10 binaries today and that I've seen no
> discussion about removing it yet, because that was not clear from the
> first answers on this thread.
>
> > The migration from T2K to Freetype still has to take place and I expect
> > there
> > will be occasional rendering and measurement differences which will be
> > considered incompatibilities but it is inevitable and unavoidable.
> >
> > It should be mitigated by the facts that Linux distros already use
> freetype
> > in their binaries so it should be no difference there, and on Mac. we
> mostly
> > use the Mac native coretext renderer, and on Windows we get LCD glyphs
> > (what most UIs use) from GDI as well.
> > Still there are plenty of cases where T2K is used for glyphs + metrics.
> >
>
> I know a lot of people who have switched back from OpenJDK to Oracle
> JDK "because the fonts looked better". But thats mostly because of
> Oracle JDK's integrated fonts, not because of the renderer. And that
> may have changed with better font properties files and fonts in recent
> Linux distributions.
>
> > As to the Lucida fonts, like T2K, if we could have open sourced those we
> > would have done it in 2007 at the inception of OpenJDK. Whilst the
> license
> > was generous it was not that generous ..
> >
>
> That's a pity but we can not change that. Maybe it would be worth
> while thinking about the inclusion of an open-source, high-quality,
> Unicode-complete (well as much as possible :) font family into the
> OpenJDK, such that we can get precise, cross-platform font rendering ?
> I'm not a font expert, but it seems that there are quite some free
> fonts available nowadays (e.g. Google Fonts, Ubuntu fonts) and maybe
> we can even convince IBM to donate their WorldType font family now
> that they've open sourced J9 :)
>
> > I am sure that many apps - and many internal behaviours - were written
> > with an assumption they were there and we will definitely have to accept
> > that there will be consequences both in terms of changes we need to make
> > to internal JDK code and changes apps will need to make to adapt.
> > Those that have been tested on OpenJDK should have made those adaptations
> > long ago ..
> >
> > Also although those are some of the most prominent pieces we can't open
> > source,
> > there are other more obscure ones. For example the ICC profile files in
> > Oracle JDK
> > were licensed from Kodak and can't be open sourced. We'll need to switch
> > those
> > to the open source ones, with minor consequences but only to the most
> colour
> > sensitive sophisticated apps ..
> >
>
> Yes, I know but I agree that color profiles won't impact nearly as
> many people as different font layout.
>
> Regards,
> Volker
>
> > -phil
> >
> >
> > On 11/14/2017 07:06 AM, Volker Simonis wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Dalibor,
> >>
> >> the Oracle JDK 9 (downloaded from [1]) still contains the T2K font
> >> renderer (at least on Linux and Windows):
> >>
> >> $ ./jdk-9.0.1/bin/java -version
> >> java version "9.0.1"
> >> Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 9.0.1+11)
> >> Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 9.0.1+11, mixed mode)
> >>
> >> $ grep -ri T2KFontScaler jdk-9.0.1/
> >> Binary file jdk-9.0.1/lib/libt2k.so matches
> >> Binary file jdk-9.0.1/lib/modules matches
> >> Binary file jdk-9.0.1/jmods/java.desktop.jmod matches
> >>
> >> The reference implementation (both versions, the GPL licensed one as
> >> well as the Oracle Binary Code licensed one, downloaded from [2])
> >> definitely don't contain the T2K renderer:
> >>
> >> $ ./java-se-9-ri-obcl/jdk-9/bin/java -version
> >> openjdk version "9"
> >> OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 9+181)
> >> OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 9+181, mixed mode)
> >>
> >> $ grep -ri T2KFontScaler ./java-se-9-ri-obcl
> >> Binary file ./java-se-9-ri-obcl/jdk-9/lib/modules matches
> >>
> >> The corresponding switch for enabling T2K for non-OpenJDK builds is
> >> still in the jdk10 [3] code base:
> >>
> >> Class<? extends FontScaler> tmp = (Class<? extends FontScaler>)
> >>      (FontUtilities.isOpenJDK ?
> >>       Class.forName("sun.font.FreetypeFontScaler") :
> >>       Class.forName("sun.font.T2KFontScaler"));
> >>
> >> If you're aware of a JBS issue to remove it please post it here.
> >>
> >> Another issue which many users of the current Oracle JDK are not aware
> >> of is that the Oracle JDK contains a set of standard fonts which many
> >> applications more or less "depend" on:
> >>
> >> $ la jdk-9.0.1/lib/fonts/
> >> total 2052
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis   4041 Sep 28 05:51 fonts.dir
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis  75144 Sep 28 05:51
> LucidaBrightDemiBold.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis  75124 Sep 28 05:51
> >> LucidaBrightDemiItalic.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis  80856 Sep 28 05:51 LucidaBrightItalic.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis 344908 Sep 28 05:51
> LucidaBrightRegular.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis 317896 Sep 28 05:51 LucidaSansDemiBold.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis 698236 Sep 28 05:51 LucidaSansRegular.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis 234068 Sep 28 05:51
> LucidaTypewriterBold.ttf
> >> -rw-r--r--  1 simonis simonis 242700 Sep 28 05:51
> >> LucidaTypewriterRegular.ttf
> >>
> >> The OpenJDK binaries don't contain these fonts:
> >>
> >> $ la ./java-se-9-ri-obcl/jdk-9/lib/fonts
> >> ls: cannot access './java-se-9-ri-obcl/jdk-9/lib/fonts': No such file
> >> or directory
> >>
> >> This can be especially problematic on Linux where each distribution
> >> has its own, potentially different set of standard fonts.
> >>
> >> Are there any plans to open-source the aforementioned fonts such that
> >> they can be added to the OpenJDK and be distributed along with it? Or
> >> is it clear that the fonts currently shipped with the Oracle JDK will
> >> never be included into the OpenJDK (e.g. because of licensing issues)?
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Volker
> >>
> >> [1]
> >> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk9-downloads-
> 3848520.html
> >> [2] http://jdk.java.net/java-se-ri/9
> >> [3]
> >> http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk/jdk/file/94f362b5f4dd/src/
> java.desktop/share/classes/sun/font/FontScaler.java
> >>
> >> On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 2:08 PM, dalibor topic <
> dalibor.topic at oracle.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 14.11.2017 13:56, Mario Torre wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>> As https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8093768 shows, freetype
> >>>>> has
> >>>>> already been the default in Oracle JDK builds for embedded and
> >>>>> desktop
> >>>>> Linux & OS X for a couple of years.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> This is also JavaFX, or am I misreading the bug report and target
> >>>> components?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> You're right, of course - sorry for the confusion.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> cheers,
> >>> dalibor topic
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> <http://www.oracle.com> Dalibor Topic | Principal Product Manager
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