Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Fonts project meeting and elections

[Ben de Groot]

On 1 March 2015 at 23:36, Guilherme Amadio <amadio@g.o> wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 01, 2015 at 08:59:38PM +0800, Ben de Groot wrote:
>> On 28 February 2015 at 19:52, Michael Orlitzky <mjo@g.o> wrote:
>> > On 02/28/2015 01:47 AM, Ben de Groot wrote:
>> >>
>> >> If we do the use expand, we should leave it up for users to set. I
>> >> suggest we default to only otf, if there is a choice. Other formats
>> >> should not be installed by default, unless it's the only option for
>> >> that package.
>> >>
>> >
>> > This is going to get confusing fast -- please consider just installing
>> > everything by default. If you default to "only OTF," what happens when
>> > you install a foo-ttf package? Is it a no-op? What if there's a package
>> > that only ships WOFF files? A combination of TTF and WOFF?
>> >
>> > Most of the fonts are tiny and it's not worth the hassle to avoid a few
>> > kilobytes. It will also keep the eclass nice and clean. If you default
>> > to installing everything, then when a user goes out of his way to remove
>> > (say) WOFF, you can go ahead and just ignore WOFF files even if the
>> > result is something stupid like an empty package.
>> >
>> > (The webfonts might be useful for clients, by the way. If they're not
>> > installed locally, your browser downloads them on-demand and caches them
>> > for later use.)
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Actually, after thinking about it some more, and doing some more
>> research, I think this approach is unnecessary. Unless someone can
>> tell me otherwise, I don't think we have any software that can handle
>> truetype fonts but not opentype fonts. Most if not all of these
>> packages use media-libs/freetype, which displays both formats just
>> fine. So when we have font packages that offer both ttf and otf, then
>> we should just install the superior format, which is OpenType.
>>
>> For packages that only offer one format, we install that format.
>>
>> Webfonts are also not an issue, as they are simply repackaged OpenType
>> fonts aimed at web delivery. But most web developers use third party
>> CDNs for that, such as Google Fonts. For the very few people who want
>> to serve WOFF fonts from their own websites, I'm sure they can locate
>> them as necessary.
>>
>> And webfonts are not useful for clients. Users should simply install
>> the otf (or ttf) format of those fonts locally, and they will be
>> picked up instead of the webfonts.
>>
>> Summarized, I propose the following policy:
>>
>> 1. If there is a choice of formats between otf and ttf, install only otf.
>> 2. Do not install webfonts.
>
> I agree with your policy, but I think it's still a good idea to offer a
> mechanism to install the other formats for those who need it, maybe via
> truetype and woff or webfont USE flags. LaTeX, for example, may not be
> able to use OpenType fonts, unless you use XeTeX, or other newer
> variant, and sometimes a package you may want to use is only available
> for plain LaTeX or PDFTeX (pst-solides3d and pstricks come to mind).
>
> We could have global USE flags for each popular font format, turn on the
> flag for OpenType by default, and let users choose extra formats they
> want. Another thing we might want to work on is on a way to convert
> fonts for use with legacy LaTeX software that can't use OpenType files.

Alexis, can you shed some light on this from the TeX side? What font
formats can be used by various TeX packages?

-- 
Cheers,

Ben | yngwin
Gentoo developer