[Pkg-fonts-devel] sharing same family name (noto, fantasque)

[Adam Borowski]

Hi!
Does anyone know the rules for sharing a family name?

One case is Fantasque: variants can't be selected because all files have the
same family (and style).

The second is Noto: currently, it takes about half the list in a font picker
on my desktop, as it's split into a separate family for every single Unicode
block (Noto Sans Ogham, Noto Sans Ol Chiki, Noto Sans Runic, ...).

Thus, I wonder: what would happen if all Noto pieces were changed to share
the family -- would fontconfig do the right thing?  I don't think there is a
reason for an user to pick one Noto piece over the other -- being split into
many files is an implementation detail.


Thus, some docs and a policy would be nice.  If it works the way I hope it
does, a possible policy could be:

* "family name" should encode the family and major variant; foundry shouldn't
  be included unless it's the usual way to call the font in question, covered
  glyph range must not be included unless there's a technical problem if two
  files share the name, width versions ("condensed", "narrow") shouldn't be
  included unless glyph shapes are dissimilar enough, style variants
  ("bold") must not be included

* "style" should include boldness, italicness, pitch, etc -- any variations
  that a human would still classify as "the same font" (even though italics
  are often pretty distinct (historically a slanted variant was named
  "italic" if it was distinct and "oblique" if it was not, this naming is
  usually conflated today))


Meow!
-- 
// If you believe in so-called "intellectual property", please immediately
// cease using counterfeit alphabets.  Instead, contact the nearest temple
// of Amon, whose priests will provide you with scribal services for all
// your writing needs, for Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory prices.