Hi, On 9/14/07, Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi all > > [I wanted to prepare a bit more before writing this, but it seems > everyone is asking about the same things at once, so this will have to > do] > Thanks for your mail. > I'd like know what people think of setting up a font SIG, and if there > are enough would-be contributors for such a SIG to be viable. Fonts > are a very transversal subject in Fedora, and the initial To: list > reflects this. Please take care to reply on fedora-devel only however. > > The situation right now is: > > 1. we have several font packages in Fedora, but are only scratching > what could be packaged. > http://mihmo.livejournal.com/45152.html > > 2. In particular the art team wants a lot more fonts in for its Art spin > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/ArtTeamProjects/FedoraArtStudio > > 3. I don't believe our font selection is optimal for every locale. It > took a near-revolt by our Greek users to get their situation fixed in > Fedora Core 6, and there are probably many other problem locales, > where users just pass on Fedora or bear their pain silently instead of > telling us about problems. > > 4. The i18n team is nominally in charge of selecting the best fonts > for each locale, but does not always have the right local contacts to > do so. So far i18n has focused on technical problems : if your locale > needs complex IM methods you have i18n visibility, if your locale > poses no technical challenge but your default fonts are suboptimal the > i18n team may not notice you. > > 4. The l10n team has local contacts and could provide useful feedback > on font choices, currently packaged font problems, local > foundries/font designers that could be contacted to contribute to the > FLOSS font pool, etc but has mostly focused on translation so far. > > 5. The desktop team handles our font infrastructure and takes the heat > when a font is badly rendered (since we can not use the patented > freetype autohinter many fonts that work fine under windows do not > under Fedora) > > 6. We already have some font-related material disseminated on our wiki: > - packaging rules, > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/ScriptletSnippets#head-4863fc4c93cec14292719d8901d83f5d90c3e477 > - licensing rules > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#head-63f9d798a33b23a752e5a3b22a0888046d4cb8d8 > - other > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fonts/DejaVu > Yes. But still I think good to have a single page say http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Fonts > 7. The font situation is bad enough we have a font exception to our > FLOSS rules > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#head-daa717ea096fa4d9cf7b9a49b5edb36e3bda3aac > [for example we ship Luxi even though its licensing forbids > modification, making it non-free > http://www.xfree86.org/current/LICENSE11.html] > > 8. There are efforts to drain the font licensing swamp and promote > FLOSS fonts (http://unifont.org/go_for_ofl/), they are aligned with > Fedora general objectives yet Fedora has totally ignored them so far > (cf Liberation licensing choices) > I18n and more importantly l10n team should check those fonts and provide which fonts are rendering fine in fedora so that we can see them packaged for fedora. > This is a stark contrast with the very active debian font team : > http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/GUIFonts > The main part of the OLPC font page is the Debian font list! > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Fonts We should also have all fonts packages for fedora be listed in Font Matrix. > > I believe there is enough interest in the various Fedora groups to > improve the current situation through a font SIG. > > This SIG would be tasked with: > A. providing a single point of entry for Fedora people interested in > fonts, centralizing all our packaging rules or at least indexing them > in a single place > B. completing the existing font packaging documentation > C. helping the i18n team maintain the font install list for each locale > D. identifying fonts worthy of packaging for l10n or art reasons > E. identifying problems in existing font packages and helping relay > the info upstream > F. identifying problems in our font infrastructure, packaging > necessary font tools > G. coordinating and effectively packaging new fonts > > As the current maintainer of dejavu, and a co-maintainer of charis and > dejavu-lgc, I am ready to write a commented font spec example (B) > (without legacy core font bits, which IMHO should be optional nowadays > ; however I'm sure there are people ready and willing to write this > part as an extension), and package a few fonts (G). > > The l10n and i18n groups are naturals for (C). We just have to steal > the Debian receipe of having a font-by-locale table in our wiki. yes. we should have that list. > > I think it's pretty obvious the art team is motivated by (E). IMHO the > l10n team should have a role there too. Note that doing the legal > analysis of a potential font is far from easy as font licensing > practices are far less clean than software licensing practices. Also > we should try to build font from sources whenever possible, but font > building is often a mess. > > G will demand packagers and reviewers. By nature most of them will be > active in other Fedora forums, so we're not talking of a few full-time > SIG members but a lot of part-time contributors. > > I created a mockup wiki page to try to make all this clear > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/NicolasMailhot/FontMatrix > It's far from complete, but I hope it's complete enough to give > everyone an idea of the potential SIG scope. Thanks for that. > > So, who wants to play? Is Fedora ready for a font SIG or should I ask > again next year? +1 to have font SIG. Regards, Parag. -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
