Re: Font package naming convention

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> skribis:

> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 10:30:24PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Furthermore, unlike software packages, what matters here is the actual
>> name of the font or font collection, not the “system name” or “tarball
>> name.”
>> Here’s a possible answer to the above questions, informally:
>>   • Use ‘font-FOUNDRY-FAMILY’ or ‘font-FAMILY’ or
>>     ‘font-FOUNDRY-COLLECTION’ or ‘font-COLLECTION’ as the name.
>>     Examples: ‘font-bitstream-vera’, ‘font-liberation’, ‘font-unifont’.
>>   • Use ‘font-.*-FORMAT’ only when there happens to be separate packages
>>     for separate formats.  FORMAT would be the format short name, like
>>     ‘ttf’, ‘otf’, ‘type1’.
>> WDYT, fellow nitpickers?  :-)
>
> This sounds like quite an interesting solution - so we would completely drop
> the upstream package name and only go for the font name (which would normally
> be some part of the upstream package name, I suppose).
>
> What would be the role of FOUNDRY? Should we try to find it out for most
> fonts, or would it only be there to avoid confusions for fonts such as
> Garamond?

Some fonts are created by hobbyists rather than a foundry.

Some of the fonts created by foundries are often referred to it using
the foundry’s name, such as “Bitstream Vera”; there are also
counter-examples, like Gentium, Charis, etc. (by SIL.)

So, again very informally, I would suggest to use the foundry name in
cases where people expect to see it, and in cases where it removes
ambiguity with similarly-named fonts.

What do people think?

>> IMO the goal should be to find something convenient for users.
>> Sometimes, maybe, there will be several valid choices for the package
>> name, but that’s fine, I think.
>
> Maybe we could refine the rules once an ambiguity occurs and see if we can
> lift it.

Sure.

> One suggestion: I would like to keep the names of the x.org fonts as they
> are, following the software package guidelines. I think they are more software
> than fonts that actual users would employ to typeset their documents.

Yes, I agree.

Thanks,
Ludo’.