Bug#941803: debian-policy: dependencies on font packages

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Sat, 2019-10-05 at 21:44:25 +0200, Stephen Kitt wrote:
> Package: debian-policy
> Version: 4.4.1.1
> Severity: normal

> Policy section 11.8.5, point 1 says
> 
> > If one or more of the fonts so packaged are necessary for proper
> > operation of the package with which they are associated the font
> > package may be Recommended; if the fonts merely provide an
> > enhancement, a Suggests relationship may be used. Packages must not
> > Depend on font packages.
> 
> The associated footnote explains that
> 
> > This is because the X server may retrieve fonts from the local file
> > system or over the network from an X font server; the Debian package
> > system is empowered to deal only with the local file system.
> 
> While this is still technically true,

Actually, I don't think this is true nowadays. Font server support was
disabled in libxfont 1:1.4.7-1 (in 2014-01-07).

> it seems rather irrelevant
> nowadays: most GUI programs directly render fonts obtained locally,
> and even for “traditional” X fonts, the vast majority of systems will
> obtain the fonts locally. Debian hasn’t had xfs for 5.5 years
> (<https://bugs.debian.org/733958>); there is another font server
> available, xfstt, but that only handles TrueType fonts.

I've kept xfstt in the archive mostly for two reasons:

  - sentimental; it's the first package I adopted in Debian (at the
    same time of taking over as upstream :).
  - remote usage; external non-Debian systems where their X server
    still has font server support can still use these.

 But it has crossed my mind few times already, dropping it from Debian
 and probably also from upstream.

> It’s common for packages to strongly depend on non-X fonts they need;
> see for example the reverse dependencies of fonts-dejavu. While
> lintian objects to X font depencencies
> (<https://lintian.debian.org/tags/package-depends-on-an-x-font-package.html>),
> it doesn’t have anything to say about non-X fonts (rightly so).
> 
> Wouldn’t it make sense to relax the constraints on X font
> dependencies?

Looks like it to me, yes.

Thanks,
Guillem