RFC: Making the xfs font server optional in Fedora Core and its derivatives.

[Mike A. Harris]

Adam Jackson wrote:
> Mike A. Harris wrote:
>> Dimi Paun wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2006-05-21 at 01:16 -0400, Mike A. Harris wrote:
>>>> On the other hand, there are many applications included both
>>>> in Fedora Core, and in Fedora Extras, which do rely on the
>>>> core fonts system still, and are likely to rely on it for the
>>>> forseeable future. 
>>>
>>> Great to hear we're moving in this direction.
>>> I guess the obvious question is "what will break?". Once we
>>> have a clear idea what really depends on xfs (some packages, like 
>>> wine, _can_ work with xfs if it's the only available option, or 
>>> without), we can devise a plan of making xfs optional (moved to Extra 
>>> along with all apps that depend on it?).
>>
>> No apps[1] require xfs.  Lots of apps require "core fonts"
>> support.  We currently provide core fonts support via the
>> xfs font server, however the X server is equally capable
>> of serving fonts on its own without a separate font server.
> 
> I assume the [1] here was meant to point to a footnote about various 
> very-low-level tools that do know how to explicitly talk to font 
> servers.  It's not a large list: fslsfonts, fstobdf, mkcfm, showfont, 
> and xfsinfo from the Xorg app collection, and probably zero outside of 
> that.

Doh!  Indeed you are correct.  I put the [1] there to add a footnote
explaining xfsinfo etc. directly require xfs, but forgot to include
the footnote.  Good observation!  ;o)

> I'm of the opinion that leaving xfs enabled isn't really a big deal even 
> in RHEL, and that the correct fix is to fix the X server to use 
> fontconfig once and for all, rather than expose users to a needless 
> configuration change.  I don't see the intermediate steps as being 
> worthwhile targets on their own.

Replacing the core fonts system with a compatibility layer that is
implemented on top of Xft/fontconfig is indeed the best long term
solution IMHO.  Unfortunately, such solution does not exist at this
point in time, and is equally unlikely to exist in time for FC6 and
RHEL5 as far as I can determine.  So we need a solution for OLPC,
FC6, RHEL5 which can be ready probably before test2 in order to
have time to work out any kinks.

The question then becomes:

Do the OLPC people require a solution right now, or can they wait until
some yet unnamed person writes a core fonts compatibility layer that
sits on top of fontconfig/Xft?

I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect that they want some
kind of solution ASAP, wether it is a hack or a solid long term
solution.

Do you have any thoughts as to what we should do for FC6 to solve
the dependency on xfs for OLPC, under the assumption that such long
term fontconfig/Xft core fonts solution will not be available in time
for FC6test2?

Ideally, I'd like to have something in place within 2-3 weeks, or
at least started.

-- 
Mike A. Harris  *  Open Source Advocate  *  http://mharris.ca
                       Proud Canadian.