Google is rewriting HarfBuzz and FreeType in Rust<p>The author of HarfBuzz has published [State of Text Rendering 2024](<a href="https://behdad.org/text2024/" rel="nofollow">https://behdad.org/text2024/</a>), where he [describes](<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnR2zKf3Z_DDRS6vLgBkSHUeqI3IGOEhWYh7rAIvsb8/preview#heading=h.iu7l3cbxef8b" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnR2zKf3Z_DDRS6vLgBkSHUe...</a>) the ongoing rewrite of the entire open-source text rendering stack in Rust which is funded by Google Fonts.<p>The motivations for it are laid out at <a href="https://github.com/googlefonts/oxidize">https://github.com/googlefonts/oxidize</a>, and the actual code is at <a href="https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations">https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations</a>. The individual crates are already published to crates.io, too!<p>The intent does seem to be to completely replace the C/C++ code in HarfBuzz and FreeType in Android and Chrome, which would be a massive win for security. Numerous other HarfBuzz/FreeType users such as Firefox and all the Linux desktop would also benefit.<p>Curiously, Microsoft is rewriting their proprietary font parsing code in Rust as well: <a href="https://redd.it/12yg3cp" rel="nofollow">https://redd.it/12yg3cp</a>