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

[Rogério Brito]

Hi, Christian.

2011/10/10 Christian PERRIER <bubulle at debian.org>:
> Quoting Rogério Brito (rbrito at ime.usp.br):
>
> (having a small doubt that you're subscribed to the ML. I guess you
> are, but just in case, I CC you)

Despite me being subscribed, I am subscribed with an account that I
very rarely read. So, I would appreciate being CC'ed, especially for
some packages where I am involved.

>> 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?
>
> Both.

OK, (re)naming the packages is no big deal.

But, just as a reminder, in general people are very sensitive
regarding foundries, as can be seen in Karl Berry's font naming scheme
for fonts to be used in TeX. (Yes, I have given this bit a good amount
of thought, especially considering the precedents that we have in
other "distributions").

>> * Do you want to drop things from the font description?
>
> Not necessarily, but we might need to adapt it to explain that the
> font(s) is|are sometimes called "Linux" Libertine.

Well, the fonts are always called Linux Libertine in this case. :) We
would be the oddl ones to call it the other way. Despite the project
being called "Libertine Open Fonts Proje[kc]t", their *products* are
called "Linux Libertine/Biolinum". That would be generating needless
confusion.

>> * Do you want to change the names of the fonts and how they are identified
>>   to users?
>
> No, I think it would go too far.

OK, just checking. That would break software. For instance, people
using XeTeX (and, I think LuaTeX) would be quite mad with Debian,
breaking their texts.

> My main point here is that, besides using an irrelevant name ("Linux"
> indeed apparently "opposed" to "Microsoft"), upstream is unclear about
> the exact name of the project ("Libertine Open Font
> Project"...producing a font named "Linux Libertine" that can be used
> on anything...even in Microsoft-based environments).

The "Linux" in the name is not something that is not an implementation
detail/design decision. I would vote to keep the name here, but you
are the one that has the upload rights and I am only an outsider. :)
So, you've got the say in this case. But I would really be against it.

> Debian is not Linux-only. We will provide these packages for the Hurd
> port and the kFreeBSD port. So, really, calling the font "Linux"
> something is not a good idea.

Should we rename all the software in Debian to make it "agnostic" and
"clear" that it is not Linux-specific? Say, things like licq,
circuslinux etc. which are built for all architectures?

Besides that, a name is just a sequence of characters...

>> * We can alias the family "Linux Biolinum" to "Linux Biolinum O", as we are
>>   now shipping OpenType fonts.
>
> We could even alias it to "Biolinum". Similarly, it could be installed
> in /usr/share/fonts/truetype/biolinum (not sure about
> /usr/share/fonts/opentype...that might be another transition we need).

Using "Biolinum" with people creating documents in Debian and having
to share those documents with the rest of the world (with other
distributions of Linux or not) is likely to cause breakage, for fonts
named that way are not available in the majority of systems. We would
be introducing incompatibilities even with people that use different
versions of Debian.

The move to the opentype directory, OTOH, is a user-invisible change
for better organization and creation of higher quality packages.

>> > > 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?
>
> I don't myself use svn-buildpackage, mostly because of troubles I have
> to make it work with my cowdancer setup...but I think svn-buildpackage
> can certainly be used with the SVN layout we have for all fonts.

I didn't understand things here: did you mean git-buildpackage instead
of svn-buildpackage? I don't know what the practice of the team is
regarding keeping upstream files vs. debian packaging: if the team
maintains them together or if the upstream parts are stored
separately... Comments on this are appreciated.

But, going back to the naming and packaging per se, don't let my
comments slow you down, Christian. Just go ahead and use what you feel
is the best convention. I am just getting my feet wet regarding the
team practices and I don't want to do something to give others the
trouble to revert my changes (like what I was trying to do with
fontforge, when I joined the team and Kestutis felt that the changes I
did were excessive or so).


Regards,

-- 
Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 4096R/BCFCAAAA
http://rb.doesntexist.org : Packages for LaTeX : algorithms.berlios.de
DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br