[Debian-in-workers] Question about Sans/Serif aliases

[Arne Goetje]

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Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> My suggestion:-
> 
> 1. One ``-core'' package with all fonts.
> 2. One ``-extras'' META PACKAGE depending on  all of languages in the
>    below. 
> 3. Several ``ttf-<language>-extra-fonts'' package for each language. 

sounds reasonable.

>  > Do Indian users usually install all Indic fonts, or only those for the
>  > language they speak?
> 
> Mostly, I expect that users will install only fonts for the languages
> they read. One or two, at the maximum.

So, would a -core package with one font for each language be accepted?

> I have, and I expect most people on this list to have, all the
> languages installed. 

Me too, obviously... :)

>  > Otherwise I would need a list of preferred fonts for each script in
>  > order to change the package in Ubuntu first.
> 
> Ok. The flame war is on. You started it.

I submitted the currently preferred fontlist (according to the
fontconfig files) in my first email.

So, to throw something in the ring, I suggest the following fonts:
Bengali: MuktiNarrow
Devanagari: lohit_hi
Gujarati: lohit_gu
Kannada: Malige-n
Malayalam: MalOtf
Oriya: utkal
Punjabi: lohit-pa
Tamil: lohit-ta
Telugu: Venama

All of these fonts are actually unmodulated ones (sans serif) and should
fit with DejaVu Sans being the system default.

> (Did you say ``oh!! no!!!''?? tell us whetehr you cant seif or sans in
> the --core package.)
> 
> Serif/sans, as judged by the styles for the language in question; not
> the glyphs in the ASCII range.

That's clear. I always judge according to the styles for the language in
question (in this case its modulated vs. unmodulated, i.e. modulated
means, the stroke width can change in a stroke; unmodulated means the
stroke width is the same in the strokes).

That's why I said it's strange that some fonts are actually modulated
ones, but use unmodulated (sans-serif) Latin glyphs. And the fonts
advertised as sans-serif in fontconfig, are actually sometimes modulated
ones (Rekha, Kedage-n, Rachana, TAMu_Kalyani, Pothana2000), while those
advertised as serif, are in all cases unmodulated. So, it should be vice
versa.

Question: should we put one font for sans and one for serif in the core
package, or only the sans? ttf-dejavu-core has sans, serif and sans-mono.

Or would it be sufficient to use the ttf-freefonts as core fonts and not
touch the ttf-indic-fonts package, as ttf-freefonts seems to cover all
indic scripts. Has anyone found issues with those fonts?

As you are the ones who use such languages, your opinions please.

Cheers
Arne
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