[tex-live] libertine wrongly packaged

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:38:56 -0800 schrieb Karl Berry:

>     libertine-legacy installs/contains also the old fx***.otf-file and
> 
> By different filenames (there are no filename conflicts).
> 
>     these conflict with the newer ones: 
> 
> Another reason why lookups by system font name are inferior.  Too bad
> the engines and packages push toward that method.

Lookups by file names have they disadvantages too: 

In my backups I can find various libertine versions:
LinLibertine_Re-4.4.1.otf, LinLibertine_Re-4.7.5.otf,
LinLibertine_R.otf, fxlr.otf. 

Documents which call this fonts by file name would have to been
rewritten constantly. And if the versions had always used the same
file names, then probably a version installed in the system would
conflict in the same way as by font name lookup with another version
in the texmf trees.   

> For the record, the general problem of xetex and xdvipdfmx finding
> different fonts comes up repeatedly.  There's a bug report here:
> sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1928003&group_id=194926&atid=951385
> 
> The bug is closed because the case at hand was about fontconfig library
> versions, but it seems to me that is just papering over the problem.
> Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how it looks.  (See the latest comment,
> from me.)
> 
> However, since xetex is effectively unmaintained for any meaningful
> development now, presumably nothing will improve until a new capable
> maintainer with time to devote to the program appears on the scene.
> (Not holding my breath.)

Well I don't think it is only a problem which should/can be handled
only by xetex (or luatex/luaotfload). The TeX-systems should also
(re)consider the way fonts are installed (miktex more than texlive).
Until now (before XeTeX) TeX fonts and system fonts were two quite
separated worlds and the place where to install a font was quite
well defined: TeX fonts in the texmf tree, system fonts in the
system font folder (with a small number of exceptions like the ttf
used by the winfonts package). But current ttf and otf fonts now are
both: fonts used by a tex engine and fonts used by the system. And
it is the question if such fonts should actually be in a texmf tree.
At my opinion most users would prefer to install this fonts only
once in their system. (And - even if it is confortable - I don't
think that miktex should add by default the texmf-trees to its
fontconfig pathes.)


-- 
Ulrike Fischer