[lucida] why these strange tfm names?

[ivo welch]

As a total neophyte, may I ask why the .tfm files still have these 
strange names?  Why can they not simply keep the same names as the fonts 
themselves?  we are now 20 years into the era of filenames that are more 
than 8 characters long.  heck, is anyone in this world still running tex 
on a filesystem that cannot deal with filenames that are, say, 32 
characters long?  if such a system even still exists, in the interest of 
world peace, can we ask these users to spend $100 on a used computer on 
ebay, so that everyone else does not face these arcane conventions any 
longer?

more pragmatically, can I simply rename the tfm files? that is, will

# mv hlhr8y.tfm lbr.tfm
or
# ln -s hlhr8y.tfm lbr.tfm

work?

sincerely,

/iaw