Comment 57 for bug 80921

> Well, yes. And I received a stupefying reaction when I expressed
> disbelief about this claim back then:
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/poppler/2009-August/005008.html

Sounds like he sees a slight difference, not enough to personally care
about it, but would accept a good patch if someone else cares enough to
write one.

> The removal of filtering API is something in addition to that (i.e.,
> just using the filters that FreeType provides) and Ubuntu doesn’t patch
> that back in now.

The filtering API was introduced in 1.7.2 and removed in 1.7.4/1.7.6; it
has never been on the stable 1.6 or 1.8 branches. Ubuntu has never had a
package with this API, except briefly during the Intrepid development
cycle.

The way forward here is to work with Cairo upstream to resolve the
problems with users whose FreeType lacks subpixel rendering, and try get
the patches reintroduced for the 1.9 branch.

> Yes, but there are still many users who revert back to the old look and
> the old filter (e.g.: http://goo.gl/tnvl )

People’s monitors, vision, and preferences differ; they always will. We
should respect that instead of forcing our preferences upon them.

> The reason is that you would get very bad kerning if you would enable
> full hinting in a PDF.

Hasn’t that been a solved problem for many years?
http://fishsoup.net/articles/grid-fitting/

(I personally prefer slight hinting, but if different settings work for
other people that’s fine with me!)