Rogério Brito wrote: > Hi there. > > I read the pages related to Debian packaging of fonts in wiki.d.o and I > feel that there are some things missing from the policy. Yes, this is a loose policy which needs updating. Studying how existing open fonts are team-maintained in our svn repository is probably more useful in the meantime. > Namely, I want to get a non-free font called URW GaramondNo8, available > from CTAN, that is available in pfb format and I would like to know which > packaging convention I should use for the package. This font is still under the Aladdin Public license? Pretty sad :-( > I see that truetype fonts use a ttf- prefix and (my memory may be failing > me here) opentype fonts use an otf- prefix. Should I use the ps- prefix for > a Postscript font? I don't think that pfb- is a good prefix, but I'm don't > think that the ps- prefix is a good choice too. Good point. According to the last font review (http://pkg-fonts.alioth.debian.org/review/) we don't have any pfb-* or ps-* packages and all the PostScript fonts in the archive are in packages with naming such as t1-* *tex*, xfont-scalable-* or their own names outside of any naming convention. I agree with you that ps would be preferable to pfb. But what do you think about "t1-" as a prefix? The trouble with the ttf/otf prefixes is that various smart OpenType fonts are distributed in a .ttf file format. We actually only have a few OpenType font packages using otf in their name. I have a proposal in the works for a unified naming convention of our font packages. Users will still find them even if the naming isn't close to perfection, though. > BTW, my intention is to have some kind of Garamond font in Debian that is > available to both X and TeX (I *am* a heavy TeX user). Yeah, TeX is a delight. You may well already know about this but in any case there are newer TeX engines like pdftex and XeTeX ( http://scripts.sil.org/XeTeX ) which allows you to use current font formats (TrueType/OpenType) without the various special accompanying files. If another OpenType font in the particular style you want exists with appropriate DSFG-compliant licensing then Debian users could enjoy it in their .tex sources via these new engines (now part of TexLive). > I have working packages here, but I don't know how I should proceed with > the best packaging practices regarding fonts. > > Also, some points that I should be addressed on the policy are: > > * what is the preferred way of providing packages that ship fonts that are > not ttf or otf? This is still very much in flux. What do others in the team think? Some consistency with existing packages would be nice although not really essential. > * should/must a font register with defoma? AFAIK Paul has been handling the defoma situation, he would have the answer to this one. > * should/must a font register with dh_installtex? > * should/must a font register with dh_installxfonts? Not really sure. > * should/must a font register with fontconfig? AFAICT there's already provision in debhelper for fontconfig to refresh its cache by default. > * what are the naming convetions that a font package should follow? This will be discussed in the future proposal but right now we've somewhat followed $type-$foundry-$fontfamilyname. > * what about bitmap fonts, some of which are very good for use on the > terminal? The review currently doesn't include pcf or psf files. Some of the ttf/otf fonts have embedded bitmaps. And some of us use a OpenType font on our terms :-) What did you have in mind with this question? Where you referring to console-setup? > * what about incomplete font families (e.g., that don't provide, say, a > bold version)? Short from working to add the missing weight, I'd say a mention in the package description is fine. > * what about clone fonts of very famous fonts (for instance, I have already > found and stored on my computer the following fonts: *P*aramond, > Garam*A*nd, *B*aramand, *I*Garamond, among others). Well, looking up if their origin is legit (not a direct derivative of a restricted font) is a start. > * what about fonts that are converted from one format to another (say, ttf > -> pfb)? AFAIK these conversions are not lossless but more akin to a branch of the original font and may need quite a bit of work to get it right. > These are some questions that have been in my mind during the last few days > and that I would love to see addressed in a formal way. All very good questions for which I hope to find more time to answer in detail soon. Hope that helps anyway. > Please, keep me CC'ed, as I'm not subscribed to the list. > > > Thanks, Rogério Brito. Cheers, -- Nicolas Spalinger, NRSI volunteer Debian/Ubuntu font teams / OpenFontLibrary http://planet.open-fonts.org
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature