Hi, As most of you know server-side fonts accessed through the core X11 protocol (aka core fonts) were superceded by client-side (fontconfig...) fonts in the past years. We've finally acknowledged this fact in Fedora 8 by removing xfs and the brutal check that killed user X sessions if more fonts were misconfigured (the dreaded "can not find font 'fixed'"). IIRC this was an OLPC request and I fully support this decision. As a result the burden of keeping core fonts working moved from the distribution as a whole to the group of people maintaining and using the small group of legacy applications that still use them. It seems this change was not integrated properly and several core font packages slipped in Fedora 8 in a broken state without anyone noticing (not through evil intent, just because the affected packages are old and crufty and the people that stridently defend core fonts use were doing something else). For the calendar-impaired, that was before the Fonts SIG started its activities. To fix this situation, I call for one or several core font users to rise to the occasion: A. Please join the fonts SIG http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/Fonts B. Please write well-though core fonts packaging guidelines consistent with the objectives of people already doing fonts work for other font backends. That means in particular not having core font utilities dependencies in font packages http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/FontsPolicy#no-handler-deps Several possible technical solutions have already been posted on the list, such as: 1. pre-generating fonts.* files at %build time or 2. duplicating the solution used for the fontconfig backend. That means: a. dynamically generating fonts.* files in conditionnal scriptlets (if core font tools are present on system), and b. have one package responsible for walking the configured core font directories and re-generating fonts.* files when installed, and make core font apps depend on it (so things still work if a core font using app is installed after fonts packages are) There may be other solutions, it's up to the core fonts community to choose one. Do not fall in the facility of brutaly making font packages depend on mkfontdir, as a lot of font packages are not exposed only via the core X11 protocol and most of their users do not want the core font stack installed. (OLPC is such a group). C. Please discuss your guidelines on the Fonts SIG list and among core fonts users so we have consensus. Then get your guidelines officialised D. Please audit all the existing core fonts packages and make them conform to the resulting core font guidelines, so we don't get accidental breakage like right now Anyone stepping in to do this will have my complete support, and I hope the one of the whole distribution. Otherwise Jens has indicated he may end up writing core fonts packaging guidelines, but frankly given the level of abuse we've seen from core font users lately I'd understand if he passed. And in the end core fonts users would be better served by guidelines written by less busy people who actually use the core fonts backend. This will be my last statement on the subject. Thank you for your attention. -- Nicolas MailhotHi,
As most of you know most of the Linux ecosystem moved away from server-side fonts accessed through the core X11 protocol (aka core fonts) to client-side fontconfig fonts in the last years. We've finally acknowledged this fact in Fedora 8 by removing xfs and the check that killed user X sessions if more fonts were misconfigured (the dreaded "can not find font 'fixed'").
As a result the burden of keeping core fonts working moved from the distribution as a whole to the small group of people maintaining and using applications that still needed them.
It seems this change was not integrated properly and several core font packages slipped in Fedora 8 in a broken state without anyone noticing (not through evil intent, just because the affected packages are old and crufty and the people that stridently defend core fonts use where doing something else).
To fix this situation, I call for one or several core font users
-- Nicolas Mailhot |
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