It appears that packages fonts-KOI8-R* and XFree-86-cyrillic-fonts provide somewhat different versions of exactly the same fonts. For example: % grep cronyx-courier-medium-o-normal--14-100-100-100-m-80 /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi/fonts.* /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/fonts.* /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi/fonts.alias:-cronyx-courier-medium-o-normal--14-100-100-100-m-80-koi8-r -cronyx-courier-medium-o-normal--14-100-100-100-m-80-koi8-u /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi/fonts.dir:crox1co.pcf.gz -cronyx-courier-medium-o-normal--14-100-100-100-m-80-koi8-u /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/fonts.dir:crox1co.pcf.gz -cronyx-courier-medium-o-normal--14-100-100-100-m-80-koi8-r % ls -l {/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/,/usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi/}crox1co.pcf.gz -r--r--r-- 1 root root 3635 06-23 11:29 /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/100dpi/crox1co.pcf.gz -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4778 06-25 15:13 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic/crox1co.pcf.gz This wastes disk space and makes things more confusing than it has to be (and font stuff is sufficiently confusing on its own).
One possible fix may be to follow the bug 11019 RFE and switch to using edict font package instead of cronyx in fonts-KOI8-R while keeping whatever XFree86 comes with in XFree-86-cyrillic-fonts.
Some other duplicates: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/6x13-KOI8-R.pcf.gz from XFree86-base-fonts is -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-koi8-r At the same time /usr/share/fonts/KOI8-R/misc/6x13s.pcf.gz from fonts-KOI8-R is -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-koi8-ub and is aliased to the same -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-koi8-r Meanwhile, the files appear to be different...
Mikes, we should remove the duplicate fonts. Should i remove it in fonts-KOI8-R?
If they are indeed identical duplicates, yes. The XFree86 supplied fonts are considered the baseline. Also, if some other font package out there contains fonts which are updated versions of those supplied in XFree86, the new fonts should be submitted back to the XFree86 project. In general, I wont update fonts inside XFree86 until those fonts are integrated into XFree86 upstream, as it makes package maintenance a big mess. I also am quite skeptical about killing fonts that come with XFree86 and replacing them with some other fonts. Same reason - if they are open/free fonts, and are legal, they should be submitted to XFree86.org for the font experts there to determine what the best thing to do is. Hope this helps.
cronyx fonts from XFree do not have Ukrainian characters, the same fonts from fonts-KOI8-R-100dpi have - that's the difference. please do not remove fonts-KOI8-R because it will kill Ukrainian. There is drop-in replacement for XFree86 bdf fonts (75dpi only) with cyrillic glyphs from cyr_rfx added (package is on ftp://ftp.asplinux.ru/pub/fonts). I explained the problem of cyrillic fonts to Marcus Kuhn and he promiced to use them in next XFree release. ... Leon Kanter wrote on 2002-01-26 12:22 UTC: > ftp://ftp.asplinux.ru/pub/fonts/XFree86-iso10646cyr-fonts.tar.bz2 Thanks! I have recently received a lot of suggestions to extend the ISO10646-1 fonts with cyrillic glyphs, and I'll look into that in a few weeks. I'll have a look at your fonts as well then. Markus next message from Marcus: From: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn.ac.uk> To: Leon Kanter <leon> Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 19:57:54 +0000 Thanks, that sounds very promising indeed. I expect that the next XFree86 release will come out on around 3-4 months and I'll submit a new version of the ucs-fonts to the XFree86 CVS tree before that. Markus -- Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
i assigned it to XFree86.
Since we have now released 2 public betas, and since font related problems are generally very problematic, it is too late at this point in time to make any large changes like this to the distribution at this time. It appears from above that XFree86.org has been notified of the new fonts, and plans on adding them to XFree86 4.3.0 in the future. As such, we will be better off waiting for upstream to make these changes, and then dropping any extra and unnecessary font packages or font files which we are currently now shipping. This is then something which we will have ample time to test properly and work out any bugs that are reported and get things into public beta's for proper testing. I'm defering this issue for our next release after XFree86 is integrated into the distribution. Once 4.3.0 is out, please feel free to REOPEN this deferred bug, so it can be managed with plenty of testing time.
I'm assuming that XFree86.org will include the updated fonts in 4.3.0. If it hasn't been done already (I haven't checked), I expect that those who are concerned about these fonts will bring the issue up with XFree86.org again and prod them to ensure the fonts are present in 4.3.0. Now might be a good time for one of you to contact XFree86.org to ensure they update the fonts if they haven't already. Our XFree86 packaging will contain whatever fonts XFree86.org ships, so if they don't update them, we'll either not ship them, or someone here at Red Hat will have to create separate font packages for them.
Closing WONTFIX, as this isn't something that will be manually added to our XFree86 packaging. It'll either get included when XFree86.org adds them, or it'll get included when someone adds a separate package for these fonts as mentioned above.
> Closing WONTFIX, as this isn't something that will be manually added to > our XFree86 packaging. The original report was not about *adding*, it was about *removing* (or otherwise resolving) the duplicates that are *already* added in the fonts-KOI8-R package.
That's fine. My point, is that I'm not going to randomly remove fonts from XFree86 packaging, and then add them back one release later. If people want their fonts updated properly, then the maintainers of those fonts will go out of their way to make sure XFree86.org has updated copies of those fonts. Otherwise it is a package maintainers nightmare. If nobody cares to keep the fonts updated upstream, then I don't care either. The work has to be done at the correct level, and that is at XFree86.org. I hope I've made this quite clear now. Time to go knock on the door of the font authors, and XFree86.org if you want these changes made.
The packages fonts-KOI8-R-1.0-4 and XFree86-cyrillic-fonts-4.2.99.2-0.20021217.0 still intersect. You seem to have misunderstood my comment #10. I am not advocating dropping things from XFree86. This is really about fonts-KOI8-R including fonts with the same names as those that already exist in XFree86. As you said yourself in comment #4, if the fonts-KOI8-R fonts are better and the XFree86 ones ought to be replaced, this should be happening upstream. Otherwise we get a mess.
Sure, by all means, feel free to file a bug report upstream at http://bugs.xfree86.org and let them know where they can obtain the updated fonts for inclusion in a future XFree86 release. The only thing I'm willing to do here, is remove font files from the fonts-KOI8-R package which are identical to ones in XFree86, or which cause a conflict. I will not remove fonts or files from XFree86 packages as it just makes maintaining these font packages a huge mess. There ultimately should be one source of these fonts, if that is XFree86, then we should not be shipping other fonts that are identically named but different, and I don't mind removing them from this package.
I see that in Raw Hide fonts-KOI8-R provides only koi8-ub fonts, while xorg-x11-cyrillic-fonts only provides koi8-r fonts. This is still weird (among other things, it's bad that a package named fonts-KOI8-R provides koi8-ub, but _not_ koi8-r ones), but may be not as bad. Anyway, I was just hoping that this could be finally solved in some reasonable manner in the new xorg world.
Hi Aleskey, Can you suggest a suitable solution for consideration? I'd like to resolve this issue for FC3 if we can come up with an amiable solution. Thanks in advance.
I do not really know the difference between all these fonts and their state in xorg (Leonid, can you comment, please?). I am just saying - _if_ the fonts-KOI8-R package provides better koi fonts (again, all I know about the difference is comment #5), then these better fonts ought to be a part of the xorg...
xorg build system generates most 8bit fonts from 10641 at build time. If xorg includes Cyrillic glyphs in iso10641-1 then no stand along Cyrillic fonts are needed. if you like to resolve this issue you should include my cyrillic in 10641 and adjust build system.
Well, as an author of CYR-RFX (cyrillics in fonts-KOI8-R/75dpi) and the inventor of koi8-ub encoding, hope I can be of some help... So, pure facts: I. Regarding fonts' presence: - XFree86 does NOT include anything but old ugly Cronyx fonts. - X.org fonts are the same as XFree86's ones -- Cronyx only. - In both cases 8-bit fonts are generated from iso10646-1 fonts (8859-1 are pre-generated and files have "-L1" suffix). - So, adding cyrillics directly to appropriate 10646-1 fonts in X.org/XFree86 will be 100% sufficient. - Several attempts were made to persuade XFree86 people to include cyrillics (see comment #5), but nothing have happened -- probably, due to legal uncertainty. (Distributing those cyrillics as "CYR-RFX" *is* legal (I contacted Chuck Bigelow, copyright holder of Lucida, and he said it is okay as long as I don't use "B&H" name; and everything is clear with Adobe-based fonts), but adding glyphs directly is questionable...) II. Regarding encodings: - koi8-ub (Ukrainian+Byelorussian) encoding was invented to be a variant of koi8-1 with ukrainian and byelorussian letters added. - koi8-1, mentioned above, is a "clever" mix of koi8-r (letters, which are ONLY characters really used in koi8-r), iso8859 (various characters mainly in 0xA0-0xBF) and windows-1251 (punctuation in C1 range -- 0x80-0x9F). Thus, pseudographics from koi8-r was replaced with much more useful (and used) things in koi8-1/ub. - so, koi8-ub is the most useful 8-bit encoding for russian, ukrainian and byelorussian in Unix. III. Regarding fonts and glyphs: - Cronyx fonts (bdf/cyrillic) are used EXTREMELY rare, so in fact almost nobody cares about their variants. - Both 75dpi/ and misc/ fonts in KOI8-R package DO contain all required russian/ukrainian/byelorussian glyphs (but not 100dpi, shame on me...). P.S. I'm afraid I presented too much info -- enough to make the problem completely confusing :-)
P.S. Mike, may I ask for permission to view bug #67217, which is blocked by this one?
Dmitry, thanks a lot for your "pure facts". Do you have a suggestion of what would be the best way to get rid of the unnecessary duplication? Thank you!
The best way is to integrate all necessary fonts into XFree86/X.org packages. This includes: - Replacing files in xc/fonts/bdf/cyrillic/ with ones from KOI8-R package (Leonid, am I right? AFAIR, KOI8-R/100dpi/ are "ukrainified" and "byelorussified" files from cyrillic/, correct?). - Adding cyrillics (plus "numero" sign) from KOI8-R/75dpi/ to xc/fonts/bdf/75dpi/ 10646-1 fonts. - misc/ files present a more interesting question: their cyrillic glyphs are COMPLETELY different. XFree86/X.org fonts contain [a bit ugly] glyphs from appropriate Cronyx fonts, while KOI8-R includes my versions, specifically designed to be compatible with their "receiving" fonts. So, unfortunately, it is NOT possible to just remove KOI8-R package -- it contains more up-to-date fonts. The "simple" way is to leave everything as it is now. The right way -- is to put fonts from KOI8-R package into official xc/fonts/bdf/. The latter is technicaly simple, albeit boring task. Mike, are you aware, who is "official fonts maintainer" in X.org repository? It seems to be the best solution to contact him and to eliminate the very roots of the problem.
I think the best way is to add cyrillic glyphs from cyr-rfx to ucs fonts (xc/fonts/bdf/75dpi/). 8-bit encodings are not supported by Red Hat for a long time and I'm not sure that anybody needs koi8-r fonts. But if yes it's possible to generate 8-bit fonts (koi8-r, koi8-u etc) from ucs fonts by the same script that produses 8859-1, 8859-2 etc. As for KOI8-R/100dpi/, I don't like them because they are based on Cronyx and they are not compatible in metrics with other 100dpi fonts (Adobe etc.) As for me, I'm ready to spent some time and help to carefully add cyrillic glyphs to existing x.org fonts.
After re-reading all comments since this was filed, including and in particular Dimitry's comments, I think it is quite clear now that this isn't a Red Hat specific problem with which fonts we include/exclude, but rather a problem with the fonts as a whole, both the ones included in X.Org and XFree86, as well as the other KOI8 font packages also, with there currently being no "correct" _existing_ solution to the problem that we could go with. > So, unfortunately, it is NOT possible to just remove KOI8-R package > it contains more up-to-date fonts. The "simple" way is to leave > everything as it is now. This is the exact dilemna that I am faced with when reviewing a bug report such as this. The problem being that removing either package someone claims is conflicting, causes someone else to be inconvenienced. Removing the opposite package causes the same in reverse. This is compounded by the fact none of the fonts are under open source licenses, which ultimately means any problem with the fonts must be resolved by the copyright owners of the problematic fonts. We don't have the legal right to modify and redistribute the fonts, and do not have fontographers on staff if the fonts were under open source licenses (which they're not). >Mike, are you aware, who is "official fonts maintainer" in X.org >repository? It seems to be the best solution to contact him and to >eliminate the very roots of the problem. I'm not sure if there is anyone at all with the title "official fonts maintainer" in X.Org or not per se. I would suggest that using the xorg mailing list would be an appropriate way to discuss this problem and potential future resolutions. It'd be a good idea to put a bug tracker in X.Org bugzilla as well, so the issue will receive attention by upstream (whatever attention that may be however, I can't speculate). We consider this entirely to be an external issue at this point, and hope that it can be resolved by the font's copyright owners working in conjunction with the affected parties, to ensure that an amiable solution is made available to X.Org in a future release of X.Org X11, or alternatively as a separately available set of fonts which replace both the X.Org included fonts, and the KOI8-R font package. Until such external resolve has occured however, there is nothing we can do about this problem other than removing the problematic fonts entirely, which would seem to cause more problems for everyone than to leave them present in the OS. As such, I'm setting the status of this issue to "WONTFIX" pending an official solution from upstream (X.Org or the copyright owners), at which time we may re-review the issue. In the mean time, if you file an upstream X.Org bug report to track this issue, and paste the URL of the upstream report here, we will review it from time to time to see how things are progressing. Setting bug status to "WONTFIX"
Just a little comment: > This is compounded by the fact none of the fonts are under > open source licenses, which ultimately means any problem with > the fonts must be resolved by the copyright owners of the > problematic fonts. We don't have the legal right to modify > and redistribute the fonts, and do not have fontographers on > staff if the fonts were under open source licenses (which > they're not). While I can't authoritatively speak about X.org/XFree86 fonts' licenses, all fonts in KOI8-R package are open-source. Cronyx fonts (after serious modifications they should be probably called ex-Cronyx) are in public domain. And for CYR-RFX fonts I chose the X license (and can change it to anything-we-need anyway). And regarding fontographers: Leonid has already expressed his ability to help, and I'm also ready to help in case of any problems/questions.
I've just filed this bug to X.org bugzilla -- https://freedesktop.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1401 Please correct me if I forgot anything.
Since there was no response to bugreport#1401 from X.org people yet, I wrote a short message to xorg -- http://freedesktop.org/pipermail/xorg/2004-September/003389.html
Just a note: while FC3 contains both packages, when "Russian" is requested, it forgets to install both -- see bug #142085 Strange, strange behaviour... Mike, I hope this anomaly wasn't caused by uncertainties of this bug? :-)