On Sat, 05 Oct 2019 21:44:25 +0200, Stephen Kitt <sk...@debian.org> wrote: > Policy section 11.8.5, point 1 says > > > If one or more of the fonts so packaged are necessary for proper > > operation of the package with which they are associated the font > > package may be Recommended; if the fonts merely provide an > > enhancement, a Suggests relationship may be used. Packages must not > > Depend on font packages. > > The associated footnote explains that > > > This is because the X server may retrieve fonts from the local file > > system or over the network from an X font server; the Debian package > > system is empowered to deal only with the local file system. > > While this is still technically true, it seems rather irrelevant > nowadays: most GUI programs directly render fonts obtained locally, > and even for “traditional” X fonts, the vast majority of systems will > obtain the fonts locally. Debian hasn’t had xfs for 5.5 years > (<https://bugs.debian.org/bug=733958>); there is another font server > available, xfstt, but that only handles TrueType fonts.
Oops, that should be https://bugs.debian.org/733958 > It’s common for packages to strongly depend on non-X fonts they need; > see for example the reverse dependencies of fonts-dejavu. While > lintian objects to X font depencencies > (<https://lintian.debian.org/tags/package-depends-on-an-x-font-package.html>), > it doesn’t have anything to say about non-X fonts (rightly so). > > Wouldn’t it make sense to relax the constraints on X font > dependencies? Regards, Stephen
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