[Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#762296: "Droid Sans Fallback" refers to three different files

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Package: fonts-droid
Version: 1:4.4.4r2-2
Severity: important

Before the fix of https://bugs.debian.org/737105, fonts-droid installed
one Droid Sans Fallback file: DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf

Now the package installs:
- DroidSansFallback.ttf
- DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf
- DroidSansFallbackLegacy.ttf

Since they are all installed in /usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid and
share the same name ("Droid Sans Fallback"), the change introduced a
configuration issue.

Jonas Smedegaard addressed this issue in the bug report:
> As it seems all three variants register as exact same name, I suspect
> special care needs to be taken to ensure that
> DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf is used in normal cases.
> 
> Best option is to include fontconfig hints - I just don't know how to
> do that and if it is possible at all to distinguish by path rather
> than by name and other declared hints.
> 
> Second-best option is probably to ship the files outside of
> fontconfig paths, and registering them with update-alternatives.
> That allows both to change system-wide (by use of
> update-alternatives) and to explicitly use an alternative variant (as
> is needed for Ghostscript).

His advice seems to have been ignored, though.

fonts-droid is installed on every Ubuntu 14.04+ installation, and the
configuration makes DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf the preferred font for
rendering Chinese content. If we would sync the latest fonts-droid
version with Debian, that configuration would break.

$ dpkg-query -W fonts-droid
fonts-droid	1:4.4.4r2-2
$ fc-match -s 'sans-serif' | head -10
DejaVuSans.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Book"
DejaVuSans-Bold.ttf: "DejaVu Sans" "Bold"
n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L" "Regular"
Waree.otf: "Waree" "Book"
Laksaman.otf: "Laksaman" "Regular"
DroidSansFallback.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf: "Droid Sans Fallback" "Regular"
ukai.ttc: "AR PL UKai CN" "Book"
ukai.ttc: "AR PL UKai HK" "Book"
uming.ttc: "AR PL UMing CN" "Light"

As you can see, DroidSansFallback.ttf shows up before
DroidSansFallbackFull.ttf.

I don't know to which extent this would alter the user experience in
various environments, and I'm not inclined to let all Ubuntu users test
and find out. ;) I do know that we don't need DroidSansFallback.ttf,
since we like Android use NanumGothic for Korean (via fonts-nanum).

So something needs to be done. With my Ubuntu glasses I think the best
solution is to stop letting fonts-droid install DroidSansFallback.ttf
and DroidSansFallbackLegacy.ttf for now. Then, if it's considered
important to include them somehow, it should be done in a more carefully
considered manner.

-- 
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
https://launchpad.net/~gunnarhj