Q: Trying to package msttcore fonts.

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le Lun 10 février 2014 12:34, Alec Leamas a écrit :

> - The upstream spec [2] does a lot of stuff in %post:  (mkfontscale,
> mkfontdir...). How should I  cope with this?


Legalities aside the upstream spec just uses a packaging style that was
current in Fedora at the start of the millenium. It tries very hard to
make stuff like X core fonts work, when Fedora and all knowledgeable
people have long since determined it was hopeless and should be left to
die quietly (go wayland go).

I guess the only reason it was not updated is that everyone with a clue
has realised it was not a good idea to propagate an obsolete set of fonts
that can not be updated or fixed due to legal reasons.

So to answer you questions:
1. you won't lose anything significant by using our current font packaging
templates instead of the upstream one
2. it's a very very bad idea to package those fonts and expose them to
anyone. It encourages developer laziness "I can hardcode windows fonts
metrics they're available under Linux", it's a legal trap "I can bundle
windows fonts with my app, after all the Linuxes do it", it's a lie (the
actual MS fonts people get with windows are several generations later,
with lots of technical fixes and coverage enhancements, so you'd be
pushing spoiled goods to innocents).

Really there is a ton of nicer and more modern fonts on Google fonts
library waiting for someone to package. Just ignore the mscorefonts
"common knowledge" which has been cargo-culted in Linux user FAQs for
years and you'll render a service to everyone involved. We're not in the
90's any more there are lots of other opentype fonts to choose from (don't
you realise "core fonts" means "we are crushing you now Netscape". That's
ancient history, a few browser wars away!)

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot