[Pkg-fonts-devel] New release: GNU FreeFont

[Christopher Fynn]

Steve White wrote:

 > Davide,

 > The document in the link you gave is about "programs", and says "must
 > include source code". But you do not do this for *all* files in your 
distribution.

 > Do you insist on source code for .png and .jpeg files?  I don't think so.

 > I contend that .ttf's are like picture files in this regard: they
 > *are* the description of their contents.

In fact they are better in this regard than JPEG files! -  If you open and 
modify a JPEG file in a graphics editor you will lose quality. If you open and 
modify a font file in a font editor, provided you don't change the outline 
format, you won't loose any quality or information.

 > This is in contrast to program code, which contains much more
 > information than a compiled binary.

 > We include program code because without it, we can't easily reproduce
 > (or alter) the results.
 > But this rationale fails in the case of picture files and .ttf files.

Yes!

The other reason for including program code is for portability - again not an 
issue with TTF / OTF files which should be cross-platform.

If you do need for instance to read the OpenType tables (say because you want to 
make an AAT/ATSUI version of an OpenType font) you can quite easily get them 
from the final font-file itself.

 > So I still think you should not bother with this step in the case of
 > TrueType fonts.  It is just an impediment.

I agree - The SFD source files may be nice to have - but they shouldn't be a 
*requirement* and it shouldn't be necessary to build fonts in a distribution 
from SFD sources.

regards

- Chris
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