Hello!

[Corey Richardson]

Hey there Fonts SIG!

I'm interested mainly in packaging fonts. I'm new to Fedora, both 
as a user and as a contributor, so it might be a bumpy ride ;-).

I'm consuming as much documentation as I can about the whole font
stack. I've got a few questions:

1. What's the consenus about bitmap fonts? On
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Font_rendering_and_text_layouting
I found this:

"Nowadays Fedora converges on OpenType (TTF/OTF) fonts in Unicode
encoding, and no efforts should be wasted on legacy formats. "

Does this mean bitmap fonts should be converted (possibly by hand), or
are BDF/PCF fine? (I ask this because some of my favorite fonts are
bitmap)

2. What are the most common pitfalls / What should I be aware of as I
depart on this journey?

3. Are the fonts listed on
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:Font_wishlist
purely in want of a packeger (i.e. I can get cracking)?

[Dave Crossland]

On 24 March 2012 12:52, Corey Richardson  wrote:
> Are the fonts listed on
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Category:Font_wishlist
> purely in want of a packeger (i.e. I can get cracking)?

This is a job I've also been neglecting for a long time :-)

I'm not sure if that list is fully up to date. There is also the huge
repository of Google Web Fonts -
http://code.google.com/p/googlefontdirectory/ - which are almost all
in need of packaging.

Since its a big job, I wonder if a simple tool/script could help ease
the process. Do you know any Python?

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le Sam 24 mars 2012 21:52, Corey Richardson a écrit :
> "Nowadays Fedora converges on OpenType (TTF/OTF) fonts in Unicode
> encoding, and no efforts should be wasted on legacy formats. "
>
> Does this mean bitmap fonts should be converted (possibly by hand), or
> are BDF/PCF fine? (I ask this because some of my favorite fonts are
> bitmap)

You don't have to convert them, but I'm quite certain that packaging anything
not in OpenType format will be an exercise in frustration. If you rally want
bitmap fonts there are Opentype bitmap containers IIRC.
> What are the most common pitfalls / What should I be aware of as I
>
> depart on this journey?

The technical part itself will be simple. For clean opentype fonts you only
need to get the current font package template, write a description, and insert
the font file names.

A special case if fonts built from sources which may be a bit harder depending
on the robustness of upstream's build process.

For most fonts, the bulk of the work will be in identifying the font sources
and licensing, and getting the naming right (a lot of old fonts are a legal
tangle, their metadata lies about licensing, their naming is atrocious). No
script will do that for you.

It's a lot easier if you start from an already curated font library with clean
licensing (SIL was nice but I think we've almost full coverage, I started
http://arkandis.tuxfamily.org/adffonts.html but I don't have the time to
finish it, and there are probably many nice fonts in the google font library
that need packaging.

Some high profile fonts that need packaging are Google's new roboto font and
the ubuntu font (have its license oked by spot but I don't think it would be a
problem)

When in doubt about a font license (if it's not oked on the wiki) always ask
spot.