drop dependency on ttf-dejavu

Pander <email address hidden> writes:
> Please drop dependency of this package on package ttf-dejavu. This is
> preventing users using custom newer installation of dejavu fonts.

How should this prevent users from installing another version of the
ttf-dejavu package?

> I see no apparent reason for having this dependency, If there is, this
> should be reported upstream because that would mean the software is
> too depending on the installation of a certain font.

The fonts are included in the upstream distribution. For the Debian
package, we use the ttf-dejavu package instead to avoid duplication.

Regards,
Ansgar

(Experienced users) would like to install latest stable version of DejaVu which has not been packages or is already being shipped with TeX Live. Therefore, they would like to deinstall certain font packages so that there is no confusion which font files are being used.

For most font packages, it is possible to deinstall them easily. However some software/library packages are depending on certain font packages. This is usually without any real reason. The same is happening for ttf-freefont as can be seen here:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ttf-freefont/+bug/667240
and here:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ttf-freefont/+bug/667242

I agree that the best way to use packages is to trust the package dependency structure and I try to report whenever ttf-dejavu or ttf-freefonts need upgrade. If this is taking too long, I should be able to deinstall these packages and provide the files myself via manual installation. But deinstallation should be possible without breaking dependencies which (in my opinion) should not be there in the first place.

Pander <email address hidden> writes:
> (Experienced users) would like to install latest stable version of
> DejaVu which has not been packages or is already being shipped with TeX
> Live. Therefore, they would like to deinstall certain font packages so
> that there is no confusion which font files are being used.

As you said, it is already possible to install the (newer) fonts in
/usr/local.

As I prefer to not remove files from upstream distributions, I'll be
marking this as 'wontfix' here. Feel free to discuss this directly with
the upstream developer. Note that upstream includes the fonts
directly while we add a dependency on the font package and just include
a symlink.

Regards,
Ansgar

 status wontfix

OK, I will discuss upstream. Could you send me link to the project, it is difficult to find.

> OK, I will discuss upstream. Could you send me link to the project, it
> is difficult to find.

http://pdfapi2.sourceforge.net/. Many packages have a homepage field
which you can see in the output of `aptitude show $package'.

Regards,
Ansgar

Or better <http://search.cpan.org/dist/PDF-API2/>. It seems there is a new maintainer and it looks like he might not be using the sourceforge site.

Regards,
Ansgar

The next upstream release will no longer include fonts, cf. <https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=52332>. We can then drop the dependency on ttf-dejavu in Debian.

Thanks Amr