This is wonderful news, and my sincere thanks to the author.
I remember coming upon this algorithm several years ago, and thinking it was extremely elegant and very appealing, but being disappointed by the patent status making it unusable for FOSS work. I really appreciate the author's choice to dedicate it to the public domain after a reasonable amount of time, and congratulations on the success it had while proprietary!
Now if I ever get around to writing that terminal emulator for fun, I'll be tempted to do it with this algorithm for the code's aesthetic appeal.
actionfromafar•54m ago
Software patents valid for 8 years is actually something I could get behind.
moralestapia•1h ago
Thank you for your service!
rrauenza•1h ago
Here's an alternate if you're also getting connection reset errors:
We'll put that link in the toptext as well. Thanks!
VikingCoder•1h ago
Is it on ShaderToy yet? :D
byearthithatius•51m ago
Love it when someone who makes complex, helpful software is rewarded for their efforts. More stories like this!
forrestthewoods•49m ago
Oh wow this is crazy. This was a project that was reasonably successful commercially. And now it’s just being given away open source? What an absolutely incredibly gift to the community!!
aseipp•7m ago
Not quite, just the pixel/vertex shaders and the algorithm is public domain. Slug "the software package" is not open source (you can get a copy of it along with C4 Engine for $100 to take a peek if you want, though).
Vipitis•32m ago
I am sorta in a position where implementing a glyph renderer as a compute shader would be helpful. This is a great opportunity to use this as a reference... exciting weekend project!
miloignis•1h ago
Now if I ever get around to writing that terminal emulator for fun, I'll be tempted to do it with this algorithm for the code's aesthetic appeal.
actionfromafar•54m ago