Re: font policy - maintainerless program

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

"Paul Hardy" <unifoundry@gmail.com> writes:

> Still, there isn't any point in running update-fonts-dir the way it
> stands now on any TrueType font (and therefore have a package with a
> TrueType font comply with the Policy Manual) because the script never
> looks under "/usr/share/fonts/truetype".  If update-fonts-dir is to
> remain in the Policy Manual, then either it needs to be updated for
> TrueType fonts or the Policy Manual needs to change saying that
> update-fonts-dir doesn't apply to TrueType fonts, only to fonts under
> "/usr/share/fonts/X11".  Which would make more sense?

The section in the policy manual on X fonts is only for fonts delivered
over the X protocol, and hence doesn't apply to TrueType fonts.  I agree
that this is not horribly clear at the moment, in part because it's stated
in a footnote:

    For the purposes of Debian Policy, a "font for the X Window System" is
    one which is accessed via X protocol requests. Fonts for the Linux
    console, for PostScript renderer, or any other purpose, do not fit
    this definition. Any tool which makes such fonts available to the X
    Window System, however, must abide by this font policy.

This was all written before TrueType fonts were widely used for X and
didn't anticipate them, but in context the intention of this section is to
only apply to the sorts of fonts that you'd list in the FontPath directive
in your xorg.conf.

Policy needs some wording adjustment here to make this more clear.  It's
caused a fair bit of confusion lately.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>