[Pkg-fonts-devel] GNU FreeFont 20120503 released

[Fabian Greffrath]

Hi Steve,

full quoting below to keep the list informed.

Cheers,
- Fabian


Am 07.10.2012 11:07, schrieb Steve White:
> Hey Fabian,
>
> That is very interesting, indeed.
>
> I doubt the *reason* they had to patch it is the same -- my impression
> was that it was a peculiarity of FreeFont.  But then, the code that
> sets the flag is a rat's nest  (all FontForge code is).  It's very
> hard to tell without careful analysis when a given flag is set.
>
> I wrote my own table-reader for this purpose.  I tested it a little,
> but I've been otherwise occupied.
>
> Again, this is a minor issue with the font for most purposes.
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 10:20 PM, Fabian Greffrath <fabian at greffrath.com> wrote:
>> Hi Steve,
>>
>> it is some time ago that you educated us about an issue with new
>> developments in fontforge and freetype with regard to monospaced fonts.
>> Do you think this is the same reason why the colleagues from the
>> liberation fonts introduced the following change using fonttool?
>>
>> http://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/liberation-fonts.git/commit/?id=70efa453a1489b8a9c5c128d769808e9b409fcd4
>>
>>   - Fabian
>>
>>
>> Am Freitag, den 08.06.2012, 22:48 +0200 schrieb Steve White:
>>> Hi Christian and Fabian,
>>>
>>> I wanted to apprise you of a recent change to FreeType, that will have
>>> some effect on FreeFont sometime soon.
>>>
>>> It only affects FreeMono, and (I think) only in the accuracy with
>>> which the letters are spaced.
>>>
>>> The deal is, due to a disagreement between people working on
>>> FontForge, regarding the interpretation of
>>> the standards, a flag is turned off.  This used to only affect Windows
>>> applications, but now it affects Linux too.
>>> I built the font with a modified version of FontForge, which (I
>>> believe correctly) sets the flag.
>>> I submitted the patch to FontForge, and expected it would be implemented soon.
>>> But others have objected (for reasons whose explanation still escapes
>>> me).   So the patch isn't in.
>>>
>>> It isn't a *big* deal, but it will mean your built binaries will be
>>> different from the ones in the FreeFont release
>>> in this regard, and in some applications will behave differently.
>>> Under FreeType with patches from 2011-04-21,
>>> the built versions of FreeMono will not render as well as the binaries
>>> downloaded from the FreeFont site,
>>> because FontForge will not have set this flag.
>>>
>>> I'm thinking of other options, but nothing looks easy at this point.
>>>
>>> Cheers!
>>>
>>
>>
>