[Pkg-fonts-devel] Greetings

Fri Mar 31 11:16:39 UTC 2017

On 03/31/2017 12:16 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> Hi Nicolas,
> 
> Quoting Nicolas Spalinger (2017-03-31 11:16:42)
>> I agree that fonts should be like any other software and build from source completely and that's the end-goal I (and others) have been working towards.
>> It's proving MUCH harder than expected.
>> The difficulty of maintaining fontforge has probably shown Debian maintainers how difficult this whole business of font toolchain actually is...
>> The work on the licensing layer (establishing the Open Font License) was the first step, we've been tackling the reproducible buildpath for a while now.
>>
>> Thankfully others in the type design communities are tackling that 
>> conundrum too. IMHO Google's Noto toolchain is one good example. 
>> (scoop: they don't use FontForge). We are going for something more 
>> generic that other projects and maintainers can use.
> 
> For the record: I am directly involved in packaging fonts-noto.  And I 
> am seriously considering moving that package to contrib, after becoming 
> more aware of the upstream development process (I thought Google bought 
> finalized fonts and rebranded them without expecting further development 
> - but it is now clear that they do continuous further refinement - 
> seemingly in a way not possible to replicate using purely Free tool).

Hi Jonas, 

Thank you for your work on this and other packages ! 

Are you looking at https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-source or something else?
My understanding, from the presentation of the maintainers at AtypI Warsaw, and from watching the project for a while,
that they do have a working python-based toolchain that they are constantly refining via a continuous integration system. 

> I am quite curious to learn more about your approach - especially the 
> part that you have succeeded in moving to Free tools.  Because - apart 
> from you making great fonts which is obviously great in itself - that 
> can serve as inspiration for other font makers.

You're welcome to look at the various websites documented in our font projects.

>> Are you going to remove every single TTF from main (bar the handful 
>> that are really self-built) in the meantime?
>> Do you think this will be useful for Debian users?
>> I somehow doubt this is the best course of action. 
> [...]
>> I'm keen on hearing what other active members of pkg-fonts think. 
> 
> I appreciate this discussion, and your efforts torwards transparency and 
> use of Free tools.  I also understand how it is not easy.

:-) 

> As Paul already pointed out, your current fonts needing non-free build 
> tools can be part of the "contrib" area loosy related to Debian, and 
> when Free tools and/or your use of them evolve, we can ideally include 
> the fonts with Debian proper.

And yet, when Christian Perrier (bubulle) launched the team back in around 2006,
it was perfectly OK to ship end-user fonts that had no Debian-specific buildpath. 
To extend language support and installer i18n support among other things. 

I observe that, over the years, this policy, has not been rescinded.
There have been discussions and varying opinions on this topic AFAICT.
It's less than ideal but provide a working middle-ground and we're working towards a better solution. 

I don't think it's comparable to wireless kernel blobs. 
You CAN open a end-user generated font in a editor and get something out. 
Not exactly the preferred form of modification but still something you can use to a great degree.

> Statistics for freedom-friendly fonts are not great.  But that is not an 
> argument for giving up on improving - quite the contrary: I envision 
> that Debian gradually enforces more strongly our core principles to 
> treat fonts not as data¹ but as code, and apply same requirements for 
> Free licensing not only of the end product but also for the tools to 
> create and maintain the product.
> 
> It is unfair that you get "punished" by being transparent about your use 
> of non-free tools.  In my opinion Debian should value your somehwat-free 
> fonts higher than lesser-free fonts, not by including somewhat-free 
> fonts in main - that would be unfair to fully-free fonts - but by 
> excluding lesser-free fonts from main.

I appreciate your insights, thank you.

All our new projects are transitioning to open workflows. The fonts were designed to be Free, the workflow will be. 

All our fonts are Free Software, (FSF, OSI and ftp-master validated) already. Notice that the license itself does not require a completely reproducible buildpath. 
If we had that requirement strongly built-in, I'm pretty sure we would have a lot less fonts available with distribution and modification rights attached to them.

I see very few font packages in contrib right now. 
If Debian goes as far as deciding to demote to contrib all the open fonts currently in the archive, IMHO it would be disappointing. 

Any other thoughts from other team members?

> 
>  - Jonas
> 
> 
> ¹ Arguably only code (not graphics or spreadsheets or "blobs" for wifi 
> chips) need freedoms.

-- 
Nicolas