Recent changes in java-1.6.0-openjdk (font dependencies)

[Ronald Wahl]

On 27.11.2010 10:04, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le vendredi 26 novembre 2010 à 17:18 -0500, TK009 a écrit :
>> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 4:45 PM, TK009<john.brown009 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Ronald Wahl<rwahl at gmx.de>  wrote:
>>>> today I was very surprised that updating my F13 system required me to
>>>> install ~20 fonts packages. Digging around a bit showed me that change
>>>> in the java-1.6.0-openjdk package:
>>>> http://osdir.com/ml/general/2010-11/msg38744.html
>>>> Can anyone tell me the reason for all these fonts dependencies?
>>>
>>> I would like to know the reason for this as well.
>>
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657491
>
> This is basically due to the fact openjdk fontconfig support is
> incomplete, and that instead of querying fontconfig for the appropriate
> fonts to use for a particular language it relies on hardcoded font lists
> in property files.
> <...>
> Those lists are regularly out of date (obsolete/false content), do not
> <...>
> Explicitely requiring font packages is a way to limit the breakage. It
> sucks and is not really a long-term decision.

Thanks for the explanation. Is it possible to split out an openjdk 
subpackage with all (or a part) of the gui related things?

Another approach might be to synchronize the property files with the 
installed fonts using a small tool running after fonts are installed or 
removed from the system and using the font priorities in the fontconfig 
system.

Sure if you miss all fonts for your specific locale you may just see 
nothing or garbage but this problem is not limited to Java. It would be 
cool if one could specify a list of locales for his system and then 
require some virtual dependency like fonts-<locale> and each fonts 
package providing fonts for that locale have a Provides: fonts-<locale> 
in its spec file.

- ron