[Pkg-fonts-devel] RFC: Getting linux-libertine modernized

[Rogério Brito]

Hi, Christian and other people,

On Oct 09 2011, Christian PERRIER wrote:
> Quoting Rogério Brito (rbrito at ime.usp.br):
> > I spent a few hours spread over the last few days on getting
> > linux-libertine updated (there is a *huge* amount of new features in
> > the new upstream version) and I would love to get some feedback on how
> > things are going. The packaging is, as usual, at
> > 
> >     http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-fonts/packages/linux-libertine/trunk/
> > 
> > except that I am using, locally, git as a client for subversion.
> > Unfortunately, I don't know the svn equivalent of git-buildpackage +
> > pristine-tar. How do you people usually deal with that?
> 
> Sorry for coming back on this so late.

Great getting some feedback on it.

> I'm balanced when it comes at the package name. First of all, I think
> that the source package should be renamed too. The, I'd rather go for
> "fonts-libertine". I see nothing "Linux" specific in these fonts, so
> even if upstream calls the fonts this way (which is not clear as they
> speak about the "Libertine Open Fonts Project"), I think we'd rather
> avoid "linux" in the package name.

Well, first of all, let me say that I favor keeping the name that upstream
has chosen, for many reasons (I can elaborate on those latter), but:

* Is your proposal only for changing the name of the source package?
* Do you also intend to carry those changes for the binary package?
* Do you want to drop things from the font description?
* Do you want to change the names of the fonts and how they are identified
  to users?

In the same way that Linux Libertine is the name for the serifed font, Linux
Biolinum is the name for the sans serif font and similar measures should be
taken for that also.

> Before I commit the relevant changes, do you have any comments about this?

As I was expecting feedback on that, I didn't make further changes, so that
thing were not a moving targed.  But I still think that the package could
use some polishing that I am willing to do (more motivated now that I
received some feedback).

In particular:

* We can alias the family "Linux Biolinum" to "Linux Biolinum O", as we are
  now shipping OpenType fonts.
* Also, you will notice that the font packages have grown *a lot*, as the
  fonts got really much more featureful (better, from a serious
  typographical point of view). We may want to split the binary package in
  the serif and the sans-serif parts, to ease the downloads.

  Actually, we may want to split the "non-essential" Display, Display
  Capitals, Display Slanted and Initials in a -extra package, with a
  metapackage pulling all those fonts by default.

  This is something similar to what was done with the DejaVu fonts: one
  -core and one -extra package.

And as I am already using the Linux Libertine fonts, I *just* noticed a
small mistake from upstream: the Bold/Semibold Italic fonts that provide
small capitals have their style listed by fontconfig as "Bold Italic Samll
Caps" and "Semibold Italic Samll Caps".

Note the "Samll", instead of "Small".

Oh, and regarding the part:

> > except that I am using, locally, git as a client for subversion.
> > Unfortunately, I don't know the svn equivalent of git-buildpackage +
> > pristine-tar. How do you people usually deal with that?

of my last e-mail, what are you people used to do?


Thanks for your feedback,

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 4096R/BCFCAAAA
http://rb.doesntexist.org : Packages for LaTeX : algorithms.berlios.de
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