HarfBuzz 13.0.0 released with new experimental features: `hb-vector` for vector output of glyph outlines to SVG and `hb-raster` for rasterizing glyphs to A8 / BGRA32 images, among other features.

[jlink@det.social]

@mcc @iorsh @dysfun What can we control? I cannot force anyone to make warning labels, but I can choose the namespace I attach to something I fork.

[tjk@oldbytes.space]

@behdad That's incredibly disappointing to hear.

[alerque@mastodon.social]

@a1ba @behdad You need a shaper for any language, even ones you know. Odds are in my favor that you composed that toot in something that shapes English with Harbuzz.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@jlink @iorsh @dysfun That's a good point, and don't let my comments dissuade you from doing a thing you think would be helpful.

I think the place to start is clear messages in contributor rules or DCOs banning agent contributions. I've got language for this in my own repos, but I don't think there's a standard/best practices text people could cut and paste. Of course, this isn't a quickly findable sign of quality, which is what you're seeking (contributor guidelines are in inconsistent places)

[a1ba@suya.place]

@alerque @behdad maybe, I wouldn't argue here.

But rendering English, Kazakh or Russian text is pretty much possible without HarfBuzz. And that's what, in fact, what I do in my own projects.

Sure, it doesn't do stuff like ligatures and maps UTF-8 text to Unicode code points in a very stupid way. But for my own cases for the languages I know, it's just enough.

[hexaheximal@mstdn.social]

@behdad I'm disappointed.

[khaled@typo.social]

@iorsh You approved FontForge PRs co-authored by Claude Code, are you going to fork FontForge as well?

@mcc @dysfun @behdad

[splendorr@mastodon.social]

@ianbicking @behdad incorrect! all concerns and objections to LLM use are valid, because there are so many problems with them! you have to ignore *so many downstream effects* to take this position :[

[iorsh@kishkush.net]

@khaled
I said I understand @dysfun's sentiment, I didn't say I support it.

[khaled@typo.social]

@iorsh I misread you then. I was sincerely curious. @dysfun

[behdad@typo.social]

@splendorr @ianbicking As I said, community is welcome to fork. Forking is an ethical solution to concerns like this.

That said, I researched downstream projects: Debian, Mozilla, GNOME, Fedora, a bunch others, and the way I use LLM's is compatible with their policies.

Also fortunately, text *shaping* in HarfBuzz is super stable and doesn't change often. A fork of that is very feasible for distros that absolutely can't ship this.

[khaled@typo.social]

@dysfun I don’t know you, but @iorsh is a someone I interacted with before in good terms, and specifically helped him integrate HarfBuzz in FontForge.

[iorsh@kishkush.net]

@dysfun

@khaled and I have known each other for a while, please rest assured we are fine.

[jerojasro@col.social]

@behdad OTOH, I apologize: I ended up as part of the pile up upon you.

I understand it's difficult to maintain a project and find the resources one needs to do so. Thank you for that, and I'm sorry.

[jaredwhite@indieweb.social]

@ianbicking @behdad Unlike

It's actually *positive energy* to care about ethics, my dude.

[lea@lea.pet]

@behdad@typo.social L

[alwayscurious@infosec.exchange]

@behdad @splendorr @ianbicking I noticed that a hallucination made it into a commit and had to be fixed in a later one. Is that something to be concerned about?

[alwayscurious@infosec.exchange]

@jaredwhite @ianbicking @behdad Why call out the Harfbuzz maintainers specifically? Criticising LLMs in general is perfectly okay, but I don’t see a reason to single out the maintainers of a single project. My understanding is that Harfbuzz has only two major developers, yet it is responsible for text rendering in every major open source project except Wine.

[chx@chx.contact]

@julianh @behdad @dysfun Let's go on. LLMs are inherently a fascist technology created for explicit fascist purposes and backed by fascist billionaires. (One of the largest backers of it called Marinetti their patron saint.) It is extremely well suited to centralizing authority, eliminating checks on that authority and advancing an anti-science agenda. It furthers creating an alternative reality which is absolutely necessary for fascism to thrive.

[jaredwhite@indieweb.social]

@alwayscurious in case you're missing some context: https://social.coop/@cwebber/116177118662417791