Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: font-to-bdf converter
Message-ID: <9002280138.AA28301@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 28 Feb 90 01:38:42 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 36

Long, long ago (Date: 6 Feb 90 15:35:22 GMT), in a posting far, far
away (@auto-trol.com)....

[as part of a discussion about X servers that do/don't support DECnet]
>> I think a more important question than whether the server supports
>> DECnet or not is whether the server has the fonts that DEC uses for
>> its DECwindows applications.  What are the rules about copying those
>> fonts to foreign servers?

> On the "private" font issue. Since it does not seem likely that
> vendors will provide their "private" fonts in the .bdf format, did
> ANYONE try to write a "reverse-engineering" program ?

> I mean an X utility that loads a font, displays it
> character-by-character into a bitmap, and generates the .bdf
> definition.

I have.  It's not hard; the major problem is determining the types of
the font's properties.  There seem to be three possibilities: INT32,
CARD32, and ATOM, and there's no way to tell which one it's supposed to
be except by a priori knowledge of the property in question.  (To be
sure, the difference between INT32 and CARD32 is slight, from the point
of view of the program in question.)

> What about legal issues - would anyone consider using such a utility
> illegal ???

I'm sure it would depend on what you use it for.  However, it's a
pretty gray area.  Some fonts are in the public domain; it's hard to
see how using such a utility on them could possibly be illegal.  But
many are not, and therein lies the gray area.

					der Mouse

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