[RFA] Your [PACKAGE_NAME] did not pass QA

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le mercredi 25 novembre 2009 à 01:11 +0100, Matěj Cepl a écrit :

> I think you didn't get the message ... you are very welcome (well, I 
> guess, you are) to fix packaging of those fonts (see bugs at 
> http://is.gd/52X4m). If you say, that somebody else should do the work 
> (I was looking at it whether I could help there, but my estimate was 
> something like a week of full time work), then let that somebody else to 
> decide whether it makes sense.

Thanks Matěj

To sum up the situation:

1. The long-deprecated core fonts ecosystem is composed of users, some
code xorg side, and a large pile of font files this code accesses

2. The xorg code at at least one built-in backup font to use it are not
going away

3. The large pile of core fonts, OTOH, is in bitrotting packages that
didn't see real maintenance for a long time (were bitrotting way before
the Fedora Core handover and were never cleaned up since). They still
regularly fail and cause crashes that make a bad rep to Fedora fonts.

4. Some people like me and Matěj have been spending or were planning to
spend some time trying to fix this. Not because we use this stuff, but
because of some misplaced sense of duty. It is not fun stuff at all,
however, and anything that helps reducing the enveloppe to fix is
welcome news.

5. The real users of this stuff never contributed a bit to this
maintenance, avoid answering questions when people ask something about
it, refused to write packaging guidelines to help others do this work
for them when (repeatedly) invited to, and react in a very hostile
manner when they get a single mail asking them to make some effort to
stop using this stuff (either patching it out, convincing their upstream
to do this change, or finding another non-core-fonts-using alternative
to package in Fedora, there are many possible solutions). They were
*not* asked to help cleaning up the font packages themselves, because,
after all this years of no action, it's pretty clear none of them want
to.

In other words, they collectively expect someone else to do the ugly,
boring, and time-consuming work on the stuff they use, and BTW this
someone else should shut up about it and not remind them they behave
like parasites (let's call things by their real name).


Given all this, I'm not motivated a lot to contribute to this work
anymore (if I end up doing it it's because I promised people like Matěj
help, not because I feel like helping core fonts users anymore. If Matěj
and others do their part I'll help them but that's all). So I suppose
the only remaining course of action is to:

A. investigate if it's possible for a core fonts client to make sure it
only accesses the built-in backup core font.

B. if not investigate it it's possible to write a small proxy lib with a
core-fonts-like api that do not let an app select any font but the
built-in backup core font

C. if A. or B. are true, orphan all the core font packages in Fedora,
and give their current users the choice of :
 a. drop their core font use
 b. make sure they only access the built-in backup core font (possibly,
writing B themselves)
 c. actually pick up the maintenance of the core fonts packages they
use, starting with writing (and getting approved) clear guidelines how
they should be packaged, then passing each of the core fonts packages
they need through a thorough Fedora review (not let anyone re-import
them in their current awful state, then sit up doing nothing about it)

In others words, go through the orphan route that was suggested by
others in this thread.

(RHEL will of course make its own choices)

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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