Follow-up Comment #4, bug #66876 (group groff): Sorry, I was unclear about something.
[comment #3 comment #3:]
> Right now I would not expect upgrades/downgrades involving font description
> file format feature changes to work unless the font-providing package
> declared appropriately strict dependencies on a _groff_ package, which might
> not be a desirable scenario because there are applications of PostScript
> fonts other than _groff_.
This expectation of non-workingness applies only in the today hypothetical
scenario that _groff_ font description file syntax changed in an incompatible
way.
The most recent such change must have been many years ago. The file format is
defined such that unrecognized directives are ignored by the formatter and
output drivers, so the only way to make an incompatible change is to (a) add a
new directive with "arguments" or content that spans multiple lines (as with
"charset" or "kernpairs" or (b) rename an existing directive that is
meaningful to the formatter or output driver--for example, the "unicode"
directive is vague and/or misleading, and I've been hankering to give it a
better name, retaining recognition of the old name as a synonym, of course.
(_grops_ doesn't do anything with "unicode".)
Well, huh, not so hypothetical.
Change (a) is actually pending for _groff_ 1.24.0: the new "charset-range"
directive invented by TANAKA Takuji for UTF-16-encoded PostScript font support
is appearing. And I've had plans along the lines of (b).
So. Hmmm.
I guess what we need is a way to make font description file generation
flexible enough to generate output for "old" _groff_s as well as new ones.
Practically speaking, that means adding a feature to _afmtodit_(1).
This matter will need to be spun off into a new ticket.
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