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+Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of
+[Pango](https://pango.org), one of the most widely used text rendering
+libraries,
+[announced](https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/)
+their plans for Pango 1.44.
+
+Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over
+to [Harfbuzz](https://harfbuzz.org), an evolution of FreeType.
+
+*Why?*
+
+In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic, and 
+provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch
+opentype metrics with ease).
+
+Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a
+`bdf`/`pcf` bitmap font). Harfbuzz *does* support bitmap-only OpenType fonts,
+`otb`s. Convert your existing fonts over to `otb`s using
+[FontForge](https://fontforge.github.io). It is to be noted that applications
+such as `xterm` and `rxvt` use `xft` (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will
+remain unaffected by the update.
+
+Both [scientifica](https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica) and
+[curie](https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie) will soon ship with bitmap-only
+OpenType font formats.