Bug#595963: [Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#595963: RFP: yanone-kaffeesatz -- TTF and OTF font in four weights
Quoting Axel Beckert (a...@debian.org): fonts-$foundry-$fontfamilyname sounds way more sane to me for source packages, yes. I just wrote in an ITP that we could probably go this way for wheezy. So if that font is not intended for squeeze, I'd say let's choose 'fonts-yanone-kaffeesatz' for the source package. How about using ttf-yanone-kaffeesatz and otf-yanone-kaffeesatz if two binary packages do provide the separated TTF and OTF versions? signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#595963: [Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#595963: RFP: yanone-kaffeesatz -- TTF and OTF font in four weights
Axel Beckert wrote: Hi, Christian PERRIER wrote: Quoting Axel Beckert (a...@debian.org): Package: wnpp Severity: wishlist * Package name: yanone-kaffeesatz Could that be turned out into ttf-yanone-kaffeesatz? I deliberately did not choose ttf-yanone-kaffeesatz since the name above should be the source package name and not the binary name. (The same counts for the description. I'd not put my description in the binary packages, but I'm not very good at describing non-technical font characteristics.) And if the source package will contain both, TTF and OTF, I would regard ttf-yanone-kaffeesatz as a very bad choice. The resulting binary packages of course should be named ttf-yanone-kaffeesatz and otf-yanone-kaffeesatz. Of course, the package is meant to provide OTF and TTF fonts, but that would at least follow the naming logic of other font packages? Well, it you look at upstream descriptions there is an intended difference of usage between the OTF and the TTF. One being specific to another OS' rendering environment. Do we really need both debianized? And I agree with Christian that we want to follow a general naming convention for the fonts packages we maintain in the archive. Although it was decided a while ago that a big renaming/split was not essential for now, given our team resources. We have some ttf-$foundry-$fontfamilyname containing OTF files at this stage and it's not the end of the world IMHO. We can deal with that someday. (other distros have renamed to fonts-$foundry-$fontfamilyname for example). If that is the logic, it is no logic. But I fear it's really that mad: Package: otf-freefont Source: ttf-freefont And the source neither has TTF nor OTF but only SFDs. I regard such cases of source package names as quite misleading. Anyway, back to this RFP: I saw font packages in the archive which had only the TTF files in the source package while I also saw packages like ttf-freefont, which do have SFD files as source for the TTF and OTF files. Then again, there are fonts under CC licenses (which seems fine for TTF files as they are art similar to images or texts) as well as GPL'ed fonts (where I'd expect to be able to get the SFD source). Does Debian make any difference between those two types of free fonts? You seem to be missing some facts about fonts and font design in your analysis, please allow me to try and explain: - various open fonts we have in the archive are created with a buildpath we can't fully reproduce with unrestricted tools at this stage. Or that we can't fully rebuild to reach the same quality and feature parity than the upstream release. The thing is that if a maintainer recreates a different buildpath from the upstream author then they are effectively committing to maintain a derivative version. But the final TTF or OTF is both object and source as you can open them in fontforge, make modifications and create a derivative. So even if the upstream release only contains a set of final TTF files, it is already source you can use to a certain extent. Yeah, quite unique I know but fonts are a special kind of software. You can always export the ttf to text-based source formats and work from that too: sfd, ufo, ttx. We're working to advocate the release of more extended sources (smart font code, hinting, glyph and attachment point databases, scripts, etc) to designers and working on extending the open font design toolkit. It would be a pity (rather silly really) to discard all the usable, distributable, modifiable, redistributable fonts you have managed to get released under appropriate licenses over the past few years because not all designers are using fontforge on Debian as their preferred design environment. We're working on this from I feel is a more productive angle. Also we don't have the manpower to fork and separately maintain all the quality open fonts currently in the archive. - Fonts are software and CC licenses are for assets (content, documents, music, images) and Creative Commons strongly discourages using a CC combination for Software but recommends using dedicated OSI or FSF-approved software license instead: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_use_a_Creative_Commons_license_for_software.3F Can I use a Creative Commons license for software? We do not recommend it. Creative Commons licenses should not be used for software. We strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed at the Open Source Initiative. Unlike our licenses, which do not make mention of source or object code, these existing licenses were designed specifically for use with software. Using CC licenses for fonts is a bug and something Debian should discourage. Kaffeesatz's relicensing is good news in that regard. - many GPL-ed fonts are still very fuzzy about what is the
Bug#595963: [Pkg-fonts-devel] Bug#595963: RFP: yanone-kaffeesatz -- TTF and OTF font in four weights
Hi, Nicolas Spalinger wrote: Well, it you look at upstream descriptions there is an intended difference of usage between the OTF and the TTF. Yep. One being specific to another OS' rendering environment. Do we really need both debianized? Well, as far as I read it one is optimized for DTP usage and the other one for GUI usage, so I expect both variants to be useful. And I agree with Christian that we want to follow a general naming convention for the fonts packages we maintain in the archive. Although it was decided a while ago that a big renaming/split was not essential for now, given our team resources. Ok, so this has been discussed already. We have some ttf-$foundry-$fontfamilyname containing OTF files at this stage and it's not the end of the world IMHO. We can deal with that someday. (other distros have renamed to fonts-$foundry-$fontfamilyname for example). fonts-$foundry-$fontfamilyname sounds way more sane to me for source packages, yes. I'm glad to see that topic on the todo list, I though wonder why newly packaged stuff should not start using what is planned. Or is just planned to change it, but not yet decided how to change it? Anyway, back to this RFP: I saw font packages in the archive which had only the TTF files in the source package while I also saw packages like ttf-freefont, which do have SFD files as source for the TTF and OTF files. Then again, there are fonts under CC licenses (which seems fine for TTF files as they are art similar to images or texts) as well as GPL'ed fonts (where I'd expect to be able to get the SFD source). Does Debian make any difference between those two types of free fonts? You seem to be missing some facts about fonts and font design in your analysis, please allow me to try and explain: I do. So thanks for your time to explain them. :-) - various open fonts we have in the archive are created with a buildpath we can't fully reproduce with unrestricted tools at this stage. Or that we can't fully rebuild to reach the same quality and feature parity than the upstream release. The thing is that if a maintainer recreates a different buildpath from the upstream author then they are effectively committing to maintain a derivative version. But the final TTF or OTF is both object and source as you can open them in fontforge, make modifications and create a derivative. So even if the upstream release only contains a set of final TTF files, it is already source you can use to a certain extent. Yeah, quite unique I know but fonts are a special kind of software. You can always export the ttf to text-based source formats and work from that too: sfd, ufo, ttx. Ok, didn't knew that indeed. Good to know and glad to hear.. We're working to advocate the release of more extended sources (smart font code, hinting, glyph and attachment point databases, scripts, etc) to designers and working on extending the open font design toolkit. It would be a pity (rather silly really) to discard all the usable, distributable, modifiable, redistributable fonts you have managed to get released under appropriate licenses over the past few years because not all designers are using fontforge on Debian as their preferred design environment. Sure. I was just wondering why a TTF without it's source is still free software. You explained that well. - Fonts are software I wasn't really aware of that. I basically saw them like some vector or pixel graphic image... and CC licenses are for assets (content, documents, music, images) and Creative Commons strongly discourages using a CC combination for Software Yep. That's well known for me. I just applied it to fonts the other way round because I saw fonts more like assets than software. Using CC licenses for fonts is a bug and something Debian should discourage. Oh, even that bad? Kaffeesatz's relicensing is good news in that regard. Yeah, I figured that when reading http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=OFL#3b878279 And just now I noticed that you are one of the authors of that license. Thanks for that license! - many GPL-ed fonts are still very fuzzy about what is the preferred form for modification and have been created outside a reproducible buildpath. What is their source? How can people properly satisfy the source requirements of the GPL in a font context? Can they really make use of it? That's basically the question I wondered about. (there is also the issue of how the GPL interacts with font embedding). Urgs. - also free fonts is a very misleading expression as in the design community it is always associated with dubious maybe-redistribute-but-don't-modify-fonts, IOW freeware (often ripoffs). Check your preferred search engine. We talk about libre/open fonts instead to indicate the big difference between these fonts with a bad reputation and fonts which their authors want to be usable, distributable, modifiable, redistributable
