[Fwd: Re: Request for review and advice on wqy-bitmap-fonts fontconfig settings]

[Qianqian Fang]

Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Unfortunately many fonts are not so open and users still depend on
> them. So some sort of fontconfig blacklisting support is needed to
> support those fonts and users. From these exchanges, it seems chinese
> users are most affected by this problem.
>
> Since you have contacts in the chinese fonts community do consider
> reviving the patches posted on the fontconfig list in the past or
> writing others. Have chinese users indicate on the fontconfig list
> their support for them. It's not a short-term fix, but it's the right
> long-term fix, and if you don't push it this year you'll hit the same
> problem again and again till someone does this work.
>
> Last time the problem was discussed on fontconfig lists almost no one
> stepped in to write he needed this change. So fontconfig developpers
> decided it was a lot of work with no real need, and passed.
>   

hi Nicolas

I agree with you for the long-term solution of the problem. Here I just
want to describe my observation to the Chinese users and my opinions
on work-around.

Unfortunately the Chinese user community is quite weak in communicating with
the upstreams, majorly due to language reasons. More than half
of the users do not like to use English to discuss their problems, the
vast majority of the feedback and problem-solving were done at various 
Chinese
Linux forums, BBS (bulletin board system) and instant messaging.
Even those who are able to describe their problem clearly in English,
only a small fraction went through all the culture training
and practicing and become a contributor.

The bad lucks of propagating patches back to upstream is also another
reason that discourages Chinese to get involved. Chinese is one
of the most complicated scripts and is always challenging to
get what people expect without altering the default Latin handling,
therefore, the upstream developers are very cautious about any change
related to Chinese (or CJK). This also negatively impacts the situation.

As a result, Chinese users HAD to find out work-arounds to meet their
day-to-day needs. You may be supprised that almost all Chinese linux
forums have a board called "Font Beautification", it sounds ridiculous but
this is true. People used to spend days or weeks trying to fix their
Chinese font settings for all applications. That is also my motivation
to create the Wen Quan Yi project, just trying to save people's time
and make Linux easier to use by Chinese.

I can do my best to help pushing the fontconfig scheme that you mentioned,
but I am not supprized if that still not implemented after years.
But there are immediate needs to use Linux in a Chinese-friendly
way and a good work-around can really build up the expanding
user community and likely developer group, and that could
make the life easier in the future. That's my rationale to
push a reasonable fontconfig file for my font.

Qianqian