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1Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of
2[Pango](https://pango.org), one of the most widely used text rendering
3libraries,
4[announced](https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/)
5their plans for Pango 1.44.
6
7Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over
8to [Harfbuzz](https://harfbuzz.org), an evolution of FreeType.
9
10*Why?*
11
12In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic, and
13provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch
14opentype metrics with ease).
15
16Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a
17`bdf`/`pcf` bitmap font). Harfbuzz *does* support bitmap-only OpenType fonts,
18`otb`s. Convert your existing fonts over to `otb`s using
19[FontForge](https://fontforge.github.io). It is to be noted that applications
20such as `xterm` and `rxvt` use `xft` (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will
21remain unaffected by the update.
22
23Both [scientifica](https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica) and
24[curie](https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie) will soon ship with bitmap-only
25OpenType font formats.