Re: TeX fonts, part one [Was: Re: [Fedora-packaging] Proposed amendment to general packaging guidelines: no bundling of fonts in other packages]
On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Dave Crossland dave@lab6.com wrote:
2008/7/25 Vasile Gaburici vgaburici@gmail.com: I second the idea that TeX ought to be an exception to the guideline "not hide general-purpose fonts in app-specific directories"; TeX predates all other programs in a GNU/Linux system, and TeX users have hardended expectations about how it works; if Fedora's TeX package fiddles with things, that will be a loss for users.
If Fedora ships a screwed-up TeX, it would incur a loss of users, mostly of PAYING academic ones that buy RHEL through their departments, like UMD's CS dept., which just finished a big upgrade of all the CS RHEL machines... FYI: Macs are already the preferred choice for laptops amongst my colleagues, because the can run both Unix apps and Powerpoint hassle-free (OOo is still pathetic for presentations, and not everyone has the patience that Beamer requires, especially for graphics).
Back to the technical side, a font for TeX requires a tfm file (TeX font metrics). To use it with LaTeX you also need a fd file, an sometimes a sty with macros is provided, especially if the font has features. These files don't really belong the the system fonts directory because nothing but TeX can use them... So, for fubu-fonts, you'd need an extra fubu-fonts-tex, or possible even a fubu-fonts-latex package to hold the extra files (you need the latter if you consider that latex is not required to use plain tex).
What I would like to see system fonts installing themselves for TeX use, say via an autoinst postinst script. Like I said my "draft" email, that's a lot of hassle for the users to do manually. That's why I'm trying to get fontools resurected...
Also, the current texlive package has inconsistent rules for font formats. The Gyre fonts are included as OTF, while the LM (Latin Modern) are not, even though XeTeX needs them that way if you wan to select them as non-default fonts. I suspect this didn't originate from upstream.
On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 23:18 +0300, Vasile Gaburici wrote:
On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Dave Crossland dave@lab6.com wrote:
2008/7/25 Vasile Gaburici vgaburici@gmail.com: I second the idea that TeX ought to be an exception to the guideline "not hide general-purpose fonts in app-specific directories"; TeX predates all other programs in a GNU/Linux system, and TeX users have hardended expectations about how it works; if Fedora's TeX package fiddles with things, that will be a loss for users.
If Fedora ships a screwed-up TeX, it would incur a loss of users, mostly of PAYING academic ones that buy RHEL through their departments, like UMD's CS dept., which just finished a big upgrade of all the CS RHEL machines...
Oh, please, I heard the same bogus arguments from Java people when we started integrating Java under Linux at JPackage. I was not the "Java way" (the "Java way" being whatever screwed up setup SUN historically used). There would be a loss of users. Etc, etc
A few year forward SUN was quoting JPackage in all its Linux press releases and trying to catch up with us.
There is no reason to fear changes when those changes are sound engineering.
Back to the technical side, a font for TeX requires a tfm file (TeX font metrics). To use it with LaTeX you also need a fd file, an sometimes a sty with macros is provided, especially if the font has features. These files don't really belong the the system fonts directory because nothing but TeX can use them...
And thus TEX can keep them. But the common resources (OpenType fonts), it gets to share them with the rest of the system, which means installation in system dirs.
What I would like to see system fonts installing themselves for TeX use, say via an autoinst postinst script.
You're welcome to propose amendments to our current font packaging policy. We have no TEX rules right now because no TEX user was interested in writing them and other people obviously couldn't.
The main requirements are: 1. The font specs must be kept simple (ie no complex in-spec scripting) 2. A font package can not require any specific font system on install. It's only allowed to use one if already present, and it's the font system responsability to discover resources that were installed before it was on system.
(same proposal to bitmap users that complain of anti-bitmap ostracism)
Like I said my "draft" email, that's a lot of hassle for the users to do manually. That's why I'm trying to get fontools resurected...
Also, the current texlive package has inconsistent rules for font formats. The Gyre fonts are included as OTF, while the LM (Latin Modern) are not, even though XeTeX needs them that way if you wan to select them as non-default fonts. I suspect this didn't originate from upstream.
I can't comment on this part. For me they're all wrong.
packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Nicolas Mailhot -
Vasile Gaburici