Defining sources and DVCS tree structure

[Nicolas Spalinger]

To comply with Ubuntu's policies as well as best practises in collaborative open font design and to facilitate the long-term maintainership of the font project, the sources and the DVCS tree structure of the master branch of the public release needs to be defined.

Issues include consistent naming of the files and subfolders, the availability of extended sources beyond the final ttf files themselves, smart font behaviour sources and hinting sources, specimens, a FONTLOG.txt and related documentation, copyright & licensing information, trademark guidelines, helper tools, contribution guidelines, etc.

The discussion on these issues in ongoing with the foundry. This is a placeholder bug created and tagged as a reminder.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

There is a document around that attempts to begin documenting VCS tree layout, regression testing et al.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Can we add the link to the doc to this bug?

[Nicolas Spalinger (yosch)]

Seeing how this is a private document maybe we bring back the various items to this public bug when they are validated by the various contributors?

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

My own thoughts distilled after conversation:

  1. First document the manual build process for the Ubuntu Font Family by DM
  2. This gives a complete list of the software used for (1)
  3. Which leads to list of input/config files necessary to replicate (2)

My understanding is that the font build/development process uses multiple steps. The equivalent for C would be: pre-process (gcc -E), then compile (gcc -S), then assemble (-c), then link. If people start editing the assembly then any changes will be overwritten when starting the build process higher up the stack, and we've probably got the same situation with the multiple programs in the font stack.

[Dave Crossland (davelab6)]

Remember that source is defined as 'the preferred form of modification.' I suggest documenting the process of making a broad change to the whole family to audit what files and what tools are used. A broad change could be something like, making the narrow versions of the font a little bit wider.

[Nicolas Spalinger (yosch)]

Also, a key issue is also providing documentation of the design choices and implementation methodologies in the documentation folder of the tree itself. The commissioning of Vera (by GNOME et al) was supposed to include a design guide from the foundry but years later nothing has surfaced. TTBOMK nothing of that sort for Liberation was provided either. The full buildpath may be reproducable with our open-font-design-toolkit but the insider information on design choices: .i.e designer and script engineer documentation that others can build on should be included.

[Nicolas Spalinger (yosch)]

We now have more feedback from the foundry regarding available files. More details would be useful.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Done per Nicolas' layout:

ubuntu-font-family-sources (0.68+ufl-0ubuntu1) maverick; urgency=low

  * New upstream release 0.68+ufl: (LP: #629622, #633508)
    - Libre font, licensed under the Ubuntu Font Licence 1.0 (LP: #632411)

  * New upstream release 0.68:
    - All
      + Version numbering agreed (LP: #633176, #629727)
      + The glyph at Unicode x1F5d was changed in all fonts, i.e. change
        of commaaccent in Greek glyph
      + Updated OS/2 table Strikethrough and 'post' table underline
        values to match thickness of underscore.
    - Italic / Bold Italic
      + The feminineordinal in the Italic now follows the design of
        the a, it has been updated and hinted.

  * New upstream release 0.67:
    - All
      + Version number forwarded to 0.67
    - Regular
      + Hinting adjustments for 15 - 18 ppm
      + Greek glyph uni1F5D has accent corrected.
      + Hinting amends for lowercase v, w and y in sizes 30 - 42
      + hdmx table include 120dpi ranges (LP: #608823)
      + Hinting amended to adjust for Freetype hint
        implementation. (LP: #614693)
    - Italic
      + Greek glyph uni1F5D has accent corrected.
    - Italic / Bold Italic:
      + lowercase f redesigned. (LP: #623925)
      + ae dipthong redesigned. (LP: #621157)

 -- Paul Sladen <email address hidden> Tue, 28 Sep 2010 06:00:00 +0100