F39 Change Proposal: Improve Default Font Handling with default-fonts metapackages (System-Wide)
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ImproveDefaultFontHandling
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes
process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive
community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved
by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.
== Summary ==
This aims to make default fonts easier to update and install for all
the variants on Fedora and reduce the maintenance costs for them.
== Owner ==
* Name: [[User:Tagoh| Akira TAGOH]]
* Email: <tagoh AT redhat DOT com>
* Name: [[User:Pnemade|Parag Nemade]]
* Email: <pnemade AT redhat DOT com>
== Detailed Description ==
Currently there are multiple sources to manage what font packages
should be installed for a Fedora release and spins, such as comps,
langpacks, lorax, workstation-ostree-config, and fedora-kickstarts,
which makes it complicated to make default default fonts changes.
New default-fonts metapackages will be added to langpacks, some of
which will replace the default font listed in `@fonts`, etc. Then
going forward those lists of metapackages should only need to be
changed quite rarely.
* `default-fonts` metapackage to pull in:
** `default-fonts-core` metapackage to pull in:
*** `default-fonts-core-sans`, `default-fonts-core-serif`,
`default-fonts-core-mono`, `default-fonts-core-emoji`,
`default-fonts-core-math`
**** Metapackages to pull in the default fonts for Western characters and Emoji
** `default-fonts-cjk` metapackage to pull in:
*** `default-fonts-cjk-sans`, `default-fonts-cjk-serif`,
`default-fonts-cjk-mono`
**** Metapackages to pull in the default fonts for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
** `default-fonts-other` metapackage to pull in:
*** `default-fonts-other-sans`, `default-fonts-other-serif`,
`default-fonts-other-mono`
**** Metapackages to pull in the default fonts for other (non-CJK) languages
* `default-fonts-<language code>`
** Metapackages to pull in a default fonts for a specific language
* `default-fonts-extra-<language code>`
** Metapackages to pull in extra fonts for a certain languages if any
== Feedback ==
== Benefit to Fedora ==
This Change provides the easier way to manage and install our default
fonts on Fedora. In current package sets, langpacks offers non-fonts
packages to be installed even though one don't want to install them.
After this Change, one doesn't need to install those extra
dependencies for the purpose of the font installation.
== Scope ==
* Proposal owners:
** update the fedora-comps @fonts group and workstation-ostree-config
to use the new default-fonts packages
** fontconfig package default font dependency to be updated
** optionally update lorax to use the new default fonts (if they no
longer need to remove many fonts files since most are now variable
fonts anyway), otherwise it can be done for Fedora 40.
* Other developers:
* Release engineering: [https://pagure.io/releng/issues #Releng issue number]
* Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
* Alignment with Community Initiatives:
== Upgrade/compatibility impact ==
Currently installed langpacks packages will pull in the appropriate
default-fonts packages when upgrading.
Using default-fonts meta-packages means that users will get upgraded
to new default fonts seamlessly going forward.
This should provide a more reliable font experience since default
fonts should have higher fontconfig priority.
== How To Test ==
# Install the above meta packages
# See what font packages will be pulled in
We have a copr repo for early testing. You can try to install the
updated langpacks if you like.
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/tagoh/langpacks-v4/
== User Experience ==
Users will automatically be moved to any new/changed default system
fonts when they upgrade to a newer version of Fedora.
It will be easier for users to remove CJK or non-core fonts from their
system if they really want to, or to add them in minimal
installations.
== Dependencies ==
No. Updated langpacks still have compatibility on existing
dependencies. This Change can be done in langpacks only.
== Contingency Plan ==
* Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?)
** Change owners will revert the relevant changes.
== Documentation ==
None
== Release Notes ==
--
Aoife Moloney
Product Owner
Community Platform Engineering Team
Red Hat EMEA
Communications House
Cork Road
Waterford