Did anything ever come of this?
On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 10:23:01AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Okay, I guess it's time things got straightened out with regards to
> scalable fonts in Debian.
>
> As you are all probably aware, there is no current Debian Policy governing
> fonts other than fonts for X, and no Policy at all regarding TrueType
> fonts.
>
> Policy is already frozen for woody, but that doesn't mean we can't work
> something out between ourselves, implement it now, and get a policy
> proposal written up for inclusion later.
>
> There are a few guiding principles that I think should be adhered to
> when writing up a Debian Font Policy:
>
> 1) Fonts should go in an FHS-compatible location. This probably means
> /usr/share/fonts, which some packages already use.
> 2) /usr/share/fonts should probably be broken into subdirectories
> indicating the file format of the font. E.g.:
> /usr/share/fonts/truetype
> /usr/share/fonts/type1
> Again, some packages already do this.
> 3) Per FHS, only static data should go into /usr/share. This is not an
> appropriate place for fonts.dir files, because these can change. See
> the Debian X Font policy.
> 4) A subdirectory of /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts should be created and used
> in the short run to make these fonts accessible to font rasterizers for
> the X Window System. These directories should not contain fonts
> themselves, but should contain symlinks on a per-file basis to, e.g.,
> /usr/share/fonts/truetype/font.ttf
> 5) Again, /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType should NOT be a symlink to
> /usr/share/fonts/truetype.
> 6) In the long run, /usr/X11R6/lib/fonts should become a symlink into
> /var/lib, because the fonts.* are updated on font package installation
> and removal.
>
> As a practical matter, I propose:
>
> 1) To add /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType to dexconf-generated
> XF86Config{,-4} files, to /etc/X11/fs/config, and to /etc/X11/XftConfig;
> 2) That maintainers of packages containing Type1, and TrueType fonts:
> A) install them to /usr/share/fonts/{truetype,type1,type3} as
> appropriate;
> B) provide fonts.scale files per existing Debian X Font Policy;
> C) symlink each individual font file (.pfa, .pfb, .afm, .ttf,
> etc.) from /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/{Type1,TrueType} to
> /usr/share/fonts/{truetype,type1};
> D) invoke update-fonts-{alias,scale,dir} as prescribed in
> existing Debian Policy.
>
> For the time being, I propose that xfonts-scalable be grandfathered and
> permitted to install files directly into /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,
> though I may go ahead and change this before woody releases if testing
> demonstrates that I can do it without breaking anything.
>
> Is there anything I'm missing? Any comments on the above?
>
> --
> G. Branden Robinson | Communism is just one step on the
> Debian GNU/Linux | long road from capitalism to
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] | capitalism.
> http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Russian saying
