Well, well, I'm finally preparing a new release for FreeType !! Version 2.0.6 should be available next week, and will contain many important bug fixes and improvements to the font drivers. Since this results in noticeably better anti-aliased fonts in KDE and Gnome, don't hesitate to grab the latest CVS snapshot and install it on your machine to report any kind of problems before the official release.. ;-)
Since the library is becoming more and more central to Unix systems, I'm considering adopting a versioning scheme similar to the Linux kernel, where odd minor version numbers are used for "unstable" branches, and even ones for "stable" ones..
Let's plan a few things, ideally:
-
2.1.0 will be an "unstable" re-work of the internal design
in order to increase consistency and simplify module management
and interfacing.. (as well as get rid of just too many hacks
within the current sources :o)
-
2.1.1 will provide a few new important features (sub-pixel
filtering, customizable gamma correction, maybe even syntethic
emboldening, etc..)
-
2.1.2 will be a severe rework of the auto and postscript
hinters to reach new levels of quality (especially in the
monochrome cases).. well, actually, I don't know if I'll
have the time to work on these really soon ;-)
-
2.2 will be the next stable release everyone should upgrade
to when it's available :-)
Linux
I finally ditched both RedHat and Mandrake in favor of Debian, and am only now realizing that I'm not going to regret it !!. I strictly don't know why, but KDE 2.2.1 is immensely more responsive on my laptop under the latter than these two other distributions. Even Gnome feels a lot faster too !! I don't know how this is possible, but I'd like to express my gratitude towards the unsung heroes who spend their time maintaing Debian as carefully as they do. APT / DSelect are beautiful once you learn how to use them..
Hell, even the man pages are more maintained and informative than in other distributions I've used. Talk about attention to details !! Great job Debianers !!
Work
I'm getting out of the freelance consulting business !! My main motivation being to take a break from the delays and uncertainty this kind of job requires. These are of course normally compensated by a good pay, but the projects I'm currently getting involved in are so drastically un-interesting that I found a few pay-roll proposals interesting..
I'm thus now officially looking for a job, and I'm sure this will be fun, once the Xmas holidays pass. In the meantime, I'm spending my time moving my furniture from my ex-office, buying all sorts of presents for my family (probably the first year where I didn't buy everything in the last 72 hours before Santa arrives ;-)
And of course, hacking quite a bit. I still don't know if my next job will leave me enough time for doing lots of open-source, but I certainly won't miss this little window of opportunity to work on my pet projects !!
Life
I've been visiting many hospitals lately, since four people in my family recently suffered from various health disorder. Gloomy..
One of my uncle has lung cancer though that's something I would have never imagined: he never smoked in his whole life and has been practicing sport ("boxe française", sort of kick-boxing) every damn week-end of these last 40 years...
Since he went through chimiotherapy, he's constantly tired and lost a lot of muscle and weight. He also needs a cane to walk and avoids stairs since climbing them is too hard for him..
The whole family is shocked. Some christmas aren't so merry sometimes..