Fedora needs your help

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Dear all,

As some of you know Fedora 11 will feature automatic font installation¹.

This is a genuinely new feature that does not try to ape what other
operating systems do and play on Linux's traditional attention to
localization and internationalization. It's a free/libre alternative to
the DRM-ed distribution channels proprietary foundries are pushing right
now².

However, awesome new installation code is not sufficient. To work well
this feature requires a large and sane font package pool to draw on. To
provide this pool the Fonts SIG has worked hard to define clear and sane
packaging guidelines last year³. 

The maintainers of affected packages were notified two months ago of
needed changes⁴. However, while many reacted fast, others have still not
started looking at it⁵.

With only one month left before Fedora 11 beta it's time for others to
step up and help adapt the remaining packages. Please take a look at the
bugzilla tracker⁴, adopt an open bug, and propose spec file changes
there. Extensive documentation was written⁶ for this operation and you
do not need to be a font expert to participate.

Also, changing such a large pool of packages is never mistake-free, and
we also need testers to QA⁷ the changes. Please take a look at the
bugzilla tracker⁴, adopt a closed bug, and check the corresponding
package was converted properly.

I'm afraid we are massively short-handed right now. Please help.

_________

¹ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutomaticFontInstallation
² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_OpenType
³ Finally ratified in January 2009, but their expected content was
public a long time before)
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-announce/2009-January/msg000...
⁴ https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=477044
⁵ http://blog.stevecoinc.com/2009/02/help.html
⁶ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Shipping_fonts_in_Fedora_%28FAQ%29
  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:FontsPolicy
⁷
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Repackaging_of_Fedora_fonts#How_To...
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Improving_existing_font_packages
-- 
Nicolas Mailhot