[gentium] new gentium release

[pavel.farar at centrum.cz]

I noticed this release when looking at the problem with Acrobat Reader. It
added new characters mostly from Unicode 14 and 15. Just by looking at the new
symbols, these might be usefull:

U+2227 LOGICAL AND
U+2228 LOGICAL OR
U+226E NOT LESS-THAN
U+226F NOT GREATER-THAN
U+1F12F COPYLEFT SYMBOL

However the next planned release 7.0 looks much more interesting to me. It
should change the width of some letters and add new kerning pairs. Therefore
some our changes in the Type 1 fonts wouldn't be needed.

The biggest problem of the gentium package is IMHO the fact that it doesn't
build on any current distribution.

If Mojca could update the Ruby scripts, it would be great.

I looked at the Ruby scripts when working on the previous release of the
package. There must be some very obvious change (probably in the behaviour of
constructor), but I didn't find it. I know nothing about Ruby. I'm able to do
some changes, when the scripts run properly (using very old version of Ruby),
but updating them for current version would take me a lot of time that could
be spent better elsewhere.

Updating the fonts means building the type 1 fonts in the main distribution
and generating the TeX support files in a virtual machine. That is something
that I wouldn't like to do for all new releases of the fonts. Even the pain of
trying to update the Ruby scripts by myself would be better for me.

I can also see how to correct the problem with Acrobat Reader that reported
Tom. If also the fonts were updated, then it would need the main distribution,
one virtual machine for generating the TeX support files and another virtual
machine (with the last historic version of Acrobat Reader for Linux) for
looking at the problem. My acces to the current Acrobat Reader is not very
predictable. And the question is how much would be Tom willing cooperate and
how much would be Victor willing to either change his TrueType fonts or give
us permission to do it in the Type 1 fonts.

Then there are the changes that should be in the next release of the fonts.
This might include some changes from our Type 1 fonts and it would greatly
simplify our build scripts. Moreover, Victor asked where he can find our
changes when we updated the package last time.


My priorities regarding the gentium package are following:

1) Helping Victor if he wants to incorporate some of our changes. I would stop
   all other work if he wanted something.

2) Letters like dcaron which are my own big priority. Taking the kerns from
   our Type 1 fonts would improve the situation, but changing the letters
   would be even better.

3) To be able to generate the package on a current distribution.


Then would come updating the fonts and eliminating the problems in Acrobat
Reader.

If the problems in Acrobat Reader are important for Tom, he might help me and
I will give it higher priority. However, not higher than number 1. I think
that when I first help Victor if he needs something, he will be more willing
to look at the problems in Acrobat Reader.

I would also give higher priority to updating the fonts, if Mojca updated the
Ruby scripts.

If you have other priorities, let me know.

All best,
Pavel