From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sun Apr 07 2002 - 10:29:37 EDT
On Fri, 5 Apr 2002, Bryce Nesbitt wrote:
>
> Projecting a message that one project (e.g. AbiWord) is so important that it
> has special license to affect other programs (e.g. Konqueror, KMail,
> Netscape) is antagonistic and should not be done. AbiWord is only one of
> many pieces of software that must cooperate.
>
I agree this was bad and was fixed with your patch. Thanks again.
>
> > > I did not start out angry about this issue.
> > >
> > > Nor did most of the dozens of people who feel this is the #1 Unix AbiWord
> > > issue start angry. Please consider that an issue that makes so many
> > > people mad might have merit, and deserve a creative and immediate
> > > solution.
> >
> > As far as I can tell, the only thing is currently wrong is calling one
> > font name something else. I don't see the harm in this unless there is a
> > free version of the same font we could use instead of the renamed one. If
> > such a free font exists please point me to it.
> >
> > All in all I don't understand what you're mad about.
>
> My fix was not complete. The following additional steps would hide the
> issue sufficiently until version 1.2 can be released & QA'ed:
>
> 1> Apply one of several submitted patches to rename all fonts to their true
> names.
>
I see no point in doing this. It screws up the work-around we have.
> 2> Build in a simple font substitution table into AbiWord. My patch is too
> old now, but it's a 20 minute job for someone (not me) who's intimate with
> the codebase. AbiWord can know that "Nimbus Sans" is ok to use for
> "Courier", there is no need to fake out the system font list. This prevents
> collisions with free (or non free) fonts that legitimately use their own
> name.
>
I don't know how to do this. It certainly does not seem like a 20 minute
job to me. Perhaps you could resubmit your patch and I might be able to
see why you think this will only take 20 minutes. From my point of view
it looks like a whole rewrite of the Unix font system for abiword.
> 3> Add fonts to the system list permanently, not as AbiWord runs. This has a
> tradeoff. It offers predicability at the cost of exposing a some non-abiword
> users to fonts of less than standard quality.
>
I don't understand this statement. Are you saysing that the Type 1 fonts
abiword ships are not the best free fonts available? If so please point me
to them. I specifically upgraded the abiword fonts sets about 8 months to
latest available.
> 4> Don't make the main AbiWord package depend on the fonts package. Since
> AbiWord will run just fine with TrueType or other fonts that have proper
> metrics, let it. The AbiWord fonts are not a highlight of the offering --
> where they can be left out, it better highlights AbiWord to allow them to be
> left out.
We need *some* scalable fonts. The small set we ship makes the whole
abiword package portable to any unix based environment. Linux distributors
can add their own enhanced abiword with their own fonts any time they
wish.
>
> Please articulate any reasons these are not practical solutions to the issues.
>
I hope I have done so.
Cheers
Martin
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