[Pkg-fonts-devel] Greetings

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Nicolas Spalinger (2017-03-31 13:16:39)
> On 03/31/2017 12:16 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > 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. 

Thanks for the pointers.

I have not yet looked closely - and when I do I might very likely learn 
that upstream indeed uses purely Free tools in their workflow - in which 
case the issue with fonts-noto is "only" the lack of _packaging_ those 
tools.  Which is a real issue.


>> 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.

We still do.

What we do not accept is fonts _with_ a buildpath requiring tools not in 
Debian.


> I see very few font packages in contrib right now. 

I see lots of fonts not packaged for Debian at all.


 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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