[RFC] Better font filetype and metadata file detection for xfs initscript
Mike A. Harris
mharris at redhat.com
Thu Oct 9 10:32:26 UTC 2003
On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>> Any feedback appreciated.
>
>What I's like is some kind of infrastructure (font macro ?) so one
>doesn't have to write two screenfulls of instructions in each font spec
>file to get fonts registered in all available fontsystems (see the
>fedora.us bitstream-vera rpm).
>
>Last time I asked the answer was (I think) "do only fontconfig stuff,
>the rest will go away soon" - but clearly you are still working on the
>xfs backend, so...
xfs is "deprecated" in the sense that all new applications will
be using the new Xft/fontconfig infrastructure, and I had this
added to the release notes in order that at some undetermined
time in the future (could be 2 releases, or 30 releases from now)
I have the option of killing xfs and telling people "we informed
people that xfs was deprecated n releases ago, and it is now no
longer supported".
This is however just a theoretical thing to give me the option of
doing that when the time comes, so that users affected by the
change (and there are likely to be people who are affected, even
if it is 20 years from now...) can be pointed to the
documentation that indicates the change was mentioned in advance
so that people would have plenty of time to prepare.
In other words, it is a "cover my ass for the future" thing being
done wayyy in advance.
That said... There are way too many applications out there
currently which require core font support, including many apps
that come with XFree86 itself, and with other major parts of the
distribution. So realistically, core font support isn't going to
disappear overnight, and xfs wont vanish either overnight.
As long as xfs exists, and there is a need for core fonts, we
have some responsibility IMHO to provide some core font support
even if it's limited in some way. So I see no reason to remove
support until there is a real burden on myself or other
developers WRT core fonts. I will keep my font packages in a
state that handle both font subsystems as long as I can without
pulling out hair or making quality compromises.
I do not however maintain all of the font packages, so I can't
speak for the developers that maintain the other font packages in
the distribution. Hopefully others will try to keep their
packages cleanly handling both font systems also.
As for a special macro to handle font installation, that is IMHO
a double edged sword. If it was part of a particular package,
then it wouldn't be centralized and thus would have to be
duplicated in all packages, which isn't much different from what
we have now. If it was centralized, it would have to be part of
rpm's default macro set, thus imposing a dependancy on a
particular version of rpm in order for those font packages to be
useable. In a case like that for example, my XFree86 4.3.0
packages couldn't easily be recompiled for Red Hat Linux 8.0 and
expected to work. Another option is a font installation script,
but that suffers from the last problem I described also.
The bigger problem, at least as I see it, is that traditionally,
every font package maintainer has more or less done things "their
own way", so there isn't complete consistency between font
packages. I've offered to maintain all font packages in order to
maintain one set of rules/etc. and have all of the packages
consistent, but others believe it is more advantageous for people
to maintain the font packages of the region of the world in which
they are from or speak the language of. There is some merit to
that decision as well.
I admit that fonts and font related problems in general are a
huge mess, however it isn't limited to our distribution, but is a
result more of XFree86 having archaic font technology for so many
years. It'll take a few more years to shake the uglies out of
the font infrastructure.
I definitely would like to hear other people's opinions on all of
these matters though... I will probably agree with most
suggestions. ;o) I wont necessarily be able to implement or
control all font related suggestions though, but I can try to
help influence decisions for any good ideas people come up with.
;o)
--
Mike A. Harris ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat
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