On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 12:16 AM, Jason St. John <[email protected]> wrote:
> I am the current maintainer of the AUR package > ttf-google-webfonts-hg[4], and I'm bothered by the mess of various > packages there are for Google's Web Fonts project. It's not at all > KISS in its current state. > > There are currently four different AUR packages[1][2][3][4] that > essentially supply the same files, and all four packages conflict with > each other. Around August of 2012, the package named > ttf-google-webfonts[1] was orphaned, and user w0ng created a GitHub > repository[5] that mirrors the Mercurial repository[6] on Google Code > (why?). Then, the new maintainer changed the original > ttf-google-webfonts package from a VCS-type package that simply lacked > "-hg" in the name to a package that pulls tarballs from w0ng's GitHub > repo[5]. > > As you can see in the comments for ttf-google-webfonts[1], this has > caused all sorts of confusion and messages about the package being > out-of-date or having invalid checksums. To get around these issues, > user epinephrine created the package ttf-google-webfonts-git[3] that > clones w0ng's GitHub repo[5] instead of pulling tarballs from it, > which significantly reduces the maintenance required on the package. > > Then, user Gently created a package named > ttf-google-webfonts-distilled[2] that pulls a tarball from w0ng's > GitHub repo[5] and only installs a small subset of the fonts therein. > > Shortly after ttf-google-webfonts[1] was changed from being a > Mercurial-based package and not liking the direction that the package > was taking, I reuploaded the original ttf-google-webfonts package as > ttf-google-webfonts-hg[4] for people that simply wanted the old > package back that uses the actual Google Web Fonts repository to > download the files. > > To clean up this mess, I propose that ttf-google-webfonts-distilled[2] > and ttf-google-webfonts-git[3] be deleted outright, for what should be > obvious reasons. I also propose that ttf-google-webfonts[1] be deleted > because of how frequently the Web Fonts project is updated and because > the project lacks version numbers. If people really feel strongly > about keeping that maintenance nightmare, then let them have it, but I > really don't see what advantage it provides over the original > ttf-google-webfonts-hg[4] other than one less makedepends. > > I apologize for the huge email, but this situation really is a mess. > > [1] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-google-webfonts/ > [2] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-google-webfonts-distilled/ > [3] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-google-webfonts-git/ > [4] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/ttf-google-webfonts-hg/ > [5] https://github.com/w0ng/googlefontdirectory > [6] https://code.google.com/p/googlefontdirectory/ > > Jason > I totally agree with you. All the other packages are useless and should be nuked. Also, they rely on an unofficial mirror. +1 -- Alessio
