[Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#617214: ITP: cantarell-fonts -- Humanist sans-serif font family

[Nicolas Spalinger]

On 07/04/11 19:09, Fabian Greffrath wrote:
> Am 06.04.2011 15:13, schrieb Josselin Mouette:
>> What is exactly preventing the upload then? Is it about the build system
>> not regenerating fonts automatically?
> 
> I am still not sure myself...
> 
> Nicolas, what are the exact single issues that you think prevent us from
> uploading the cantarell fonts package to experimental (I mean
> package-wise)? GNOME 3 is out and I have been asked by several people
> within the last few days about the status of these fonts.

At this stage, and since there's no automated functional self-contained
buildpath, we won't create a Debian-specific one and we'll package only
the final font files, we're mostly waiting on upstream for satisfactory
resolution of GNOME #644201 and #635383 (versionning, license metadata,
copyright and credits issues). I feel that for long-term maintainership
and best practises, these issues are important to get right before
inclusion into main.

>> I’m pretty sure the ftp-masters’ position on such topics is that as long
>> the sources are here, just installing the .otf files without rebuilding
>> them is fine.
> 
> There are even font packages that contain only the binary font files
> (e.g. gsfonts) as long as the license is appropriate.

Yes, and the ftp-masters are making the right decision here: removing
quality open fonts for which we don't have a full reproducable buildpath
just yet but which satisfy the 4 freedoms would be a self-defeating
measure and would seriously hinder lots of practical uses of Debian for
many users. Better work on upstream advocacy to release as much source
as possible (which can include a bunch of different files including the
.ttf files themselves) and improve the open font design toolkit.


>  - Fabian

Cheers,

-- 
Nicolas Spalinger,
SIL NRSI volunteer - http://scripts.sil.org
Debian fonts task force -  http://pkg-fonts.alioth.debian.org
Open font community - http://planet.open-fonts.org