Re: [Pkg-fonts-devel] GNU FreeFont 20120503 released

[Fabian Greffrath <fabian@greffrath.com>]

Hi Steve,

full quoting below to keep the list informed.

Cheers,
- Fabian


Am 07.10.2012 11:07, schrieb Steve White:
> Hey Fabian,
>
> That is very interesting, indeed.
>
> I doubt the *reason* they had to patch it is the same -- my impression
> was that it was a peculiarity of FreeFont.  But then, the code that
> sets the flag is a rat's nest  (all FontForge code is).  It's very
> hard to tell without careful analysis when a given flag is set.
>
> I wrote my own table-reader for this purpose.  I tested it a little,
> but I've been otherwise occupied.
>
> Again, this is a minor issue with the font for most purposes.
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 10:20 PM, Fabian Greffrath <fabian@greffrath.com> wrote:
> > Hi Steve,
> >
> > it is some time ago that you educated us about an issue with new
> > developments in fontforge and freetype with regard to monospaced fonts.
> > Do you think this is the same reason why the colleagues from the
> > liberation fonts introduced the following change using fonttool?
> >
> > http://git.fedorahosted.org/cgit/liberation-fonts.git/commit/?id=70efa453a1489b8a9c5c128d769808e9b409fcd4
> >
> >   - Fabian
> >
> >
> > Am Freitag, den 08.06.2012, 22:48 +0200 schrieb Steve White:
> > > Hi Christian and Fabian,
> > >
> > > I wanted to apprise you of a recent change to FreeType, that will have
> > > some effect on FreeFont sometime soon.
> > >
> > > It only affects FreeMono, and (I think) only in the accuracy with
> > > which the letters are spaced.
> > >
> > > The deal is, due to a disagreement between people working on
> > > FontForge, regarding the interpretation of
> > > the standards, a flag is turned off.  This used to only affect Windows
> > > applications, but now it affects Linux too.
> > > I built the font with a modified version of FontForge, which (I
> > > believe correctly) sets the flag.
> > > I submitted the patch to FontForge, and expected it would be implemented soon.
> > > But others have objected (for reasons whose explanation still escapes
> > > me).   So the patch isn't in.
> > >
> > > It isn't a *big* deal, but it will mean your built binaries will be
> > > different from the ones in the FreeFont release
> > > in this regard, and in some applications will behave differently.
> > > Under FreeType with patches from 2011-04-21,
> > > the built versions of FreeMono will not render as well as the binaries
> > > downloaded from the FreeFont site,
> > > because FontForge will not have set this flag.
> > >
> > > I'm thinking of other options, but nothing looks easy at this point.
> > >
> > > Cheers!