Julian, Thank you for taking the time to do this. This is the type of work that nobody gets excited about doing, but that needs to be done to maintain Debian’s purity.
On Wednesday, May 13, 2026 2:27:00 PM Mountain Standard Time Julian Gilbey wrote: > affects 902981 src:aiodogstatsd src:ataqv src:bazel-bootstrap src:debci > src:ipywidgets src:kanboard src:node-webfont src:orthanc-dicomweb src:pagure > src:publican src:r-cran-shiny src:r-cran-visnetwork src:scaphandre > src:sphinx-rtd-theme src:igraph src:mdbook src:lcdf-typetools ataqv bepasty > bornagain-doc crmsh-doc debci dpdk-doc drbd-doc ford gerbera glances-doc > glbinding-doc hackrf-doc icecast2 janus-demos jupyterhub kanboard > libigraph-doc liblemonldap-ng-portal-perl mitmproxy mkdocs odoo-19 > openmpi-doc otrs2 pagure prewikka publican python-aiodogstatsd-doc > python-aioitertools-doc python-mintpy-doc python-qtawesome-common > python-sphinx-mdinclude-doc python3-ase python3-cylc > python3-django-hyperkitty python3-django-postorius > python3-djangorestframework python3-flask-bootstrap > python3-openstackdocstheme python3-xstatic-font-awesome r-cran-bookdown > r-cran-rmarkdown r-cran-shiny r-cran-visnetwork reform-desktop-full rust-doc > screenkey simple-whip-server sphinx-rtd-theme-common sreview-web swappy sympa > texlive-fonts-extra-links tulip webext-foxyproxy weechat-doc wims wims-lti > wsjtx-doc wsjtx-improved-doc thanks > > [Cc-ing debian-devel as there is a question about a mass bug filing at > the end of this email; please Cc the bug report in any replies.] > > On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 10:07:53PM +0200, Bastian Germann wrote: > > Please note that node-fortawesome-fontawesome-free builds the > > fortawesome v6 from source now. So there is a chance that we can update > > this package as well. > > Also, in #1135180, Bastian wrote: > > When you are dealing with the fonts-font-awesome package please consider all > > its reverse (build) dependencies. > > > > You should not make it hard on other package maintainers, i.e. please do not > > make them transition manually unnecessarily. > > Dear all readers of this bug report, > > [I have marked all of the packages in unstable which build-depend or > depend on fonts-font-awesome as "affected" by this bug, as this may > well affect you significantly.] > > I have just packaged fonts-font-awesome-legacy, containing DFSG-free > versions of Font Awesome 5 and 6, and it has been accepted into > unstable. I next intend to upgrade the fonts-font-awesome package > itself to version 7.x of the font. > > I was looking at including version 4.7.0 of FontAwesome in the legacy > package to support other packages which need this specific legacy > version, without requiring maintainers to make any major changes to > their packages except to (build-)depend on the legacy package rather > than the fonts-font-awesome package. But I've hit a major stumbling > block... > > To summarise most of the discussion in this bug report (#902981): > FontAwesome's build system became closed-source in version 5.x, so > Debian can't distribute it, and we have to stick with version 4.7.0. > Therefore fonts-font-awesome was downgraded from 5.1.0 back to 4.7.0. > > However, looking at the source package for fonts-font-awesome (which > is the upstream 4.7.0 version), I cannot find any evidence of a build > system. Nor do I find any source for the icons in the GitHub > repository or any build system there (looking at the 4.x branch). > Indeed, the Debian package simply copies the compiled fonts (TTF, OTF > and so on) into the appropriate directories under /usr. So it seems > that the package as-is is actually not DFSG-free in the same way that > the 5.x version isn't: there is no "source code". And 4.x is even > worse than 5.x: while the SVG sources are included in the GitHub > repository in version 5.1.0 upwards (first committed to the repository > in June 2018), they do not appear before that, so there is no hope of > making a DFSG-free build of FontAwesome 4.7.0. (The SVG sources are > embedded in the SVG font, but that is not the original source of the > icons.) > > My proposal is therefore the following: > > - FontAwesome 4.7.0 should be dropped from Debian completely. This is > a big deal, though; over 500 packages in testing ship > fontawesome-webfont.woff2 But if I've read the situation correctly, > that is the direction we should be heading in, though that's far > beyond my capacity to manage. See below for some further thoughts > on this. > > - fonts-font-awesome is upgraded to version 7.x of the upstream font, > in TTF and WOFF2 formats, using a home-grown DFSG-free build system > (courtesy of Roland Mas and Yadd, who wrote this for the > node-fortawesome-fontawesome-free package); this package will no > longer contain any other formats of the font, nor any CSS/LESS/JS > code. > > - fonts-font-awesome-legacy provides versions 5 and 6 of the font in > TTF and WOFF2 formats, again built in a DFSG-free way. > > This will resolve the DFSG-free nature of this package. > > Old package file layout (fonts only): > > /usr/share/fonts/opentype/font-awesome/FontAwesome.otf > /usr/share/fonts/truetype/font-awesome/fontawesome-webfont.ttf > /usr/share/fonts-font-awesome/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.eot > /usr/share/fonts-font-awesome/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.svg > /usr/share/fonts-font-awesome/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.woff > /usr/share/fonts-font-awesome/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.woff2 > > Proposed new package file layout (fonts only): > > /usr/share/fonts/truetype/font-awesome/fa-brands-400.ttf > /usr/share/fonts/truetype/font-awesome/fa-regular-400.ttf > /usr/share/fonts/truetype/font-awesome/fa-solid-900.ttf > /usr/share/fonts/woff/font-awesome/fa-brands-400.woff2 > /usr/share/fonts/woff/font-awesome/fa-regular-400.woff2 > /usr/share/fonts/woff/font-awesome/fa-solid-900.woff2 > > Those packages that require the JS/CSS files or SVG version of the > font should migrate to using node-fortawesome-fontawesome-free which > provides these. LESS files are no longer provided by upstream. > > If there is a pressing need for one of the other formats of version > 7.x of the the font (EOT, SVG or WOFF), then I can use the fontcustom > or node-webfont package to generate these. But if not, I can stick > with the Python script written by Yadd and Roland as I used that > before I discovered fontcustom. > > It would be good to upload a new version of fonts-font-awesome to > experimental soon, but will wait a while before making any changes to > unstable, in order to allow for a smooth transition. > > > Further thoughts on removing FontAwesome 4.7.0 from Debian: > > * It seems that fonts-fork-awesome should be an almost drop-in > replacement for those packages that require version 4.7.0 of > FontAwesome; it provides (I believe) a superset of the icons, along > with the CSS etc files. So making this change should be relatively > straightforward (though a moderate amount of work). > > * Most of the binary packages that ship fontawesome-webfont.woff2 seem > to have it as a static file in a local set of webpages. And this is > presumably imported by something like sphinx-rtd-theme. So we can > probably handle most of the cases by modifying just a handful of > packages. > > Questions: > > (1) Have I understood the situation correctly regarding the DFSG-free > nature of FontAwesome 4.7.0? > > (2) Should I do a mass bug filing against all of the potentially > affected packages (as listed in the "affects" BTS command above) once > I have uploaded fonts-font-awesome 7.x to experimental or to unstable, > as many or all of them will need to make changes to either migrate to > ForkAwesome or to accommodate the new structure of FontAwesome 7.x? > > Best wishes, > > Julian -- Soren Stoutner [email protected]
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
