Activate font auto hinting by default

[Sven Boden]

Activate autohinting by default on fonts, preferably system wide. It makes a huge difference qua font quality.
In hardy alpha4 it's not on by default e.g.

More information on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=4456

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and the supporting documentation. Wouldn't this type of change would benefit from further discussion, although I don't see much impact in enabling this feature?

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Quoting from the Arch Linux wiki:

"The autohinter attempts to do automatic hinting and disregards any existing hinting information. Originally it was the default because TrueType2 fonts were patent-protected but now that these patents have expired there is very little reason to use it. It does work better with fonts that have broken or no hinting information but it will be strongly sub-optimal for fonts with good hinting information. Generally common fonts are of the later kind so autohinter will not be useful. Autohinter is disabled by default."

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/font_configuration#Autohinter

If you disagree (ideally with evidence to support your position), please contact the Ubuntu Desktop Team to discuss.

For now, I'm closing this bug.