Proposal: Migrating homebrew-fonts to homebrew-cask-fonts

[tani]

Motivation

I am a maintainer of linuxbrew/homebrew-fonts. I got a proposal by @MikeMcQuaid proposed changing the place of homebrew-fonts (Homebrew/homebrew-linux-fonts#28). I propose merging it to homebrew-cask-fonts. I dream that we install the same fonts from the same repository by the same instruction between macOS and Linux like Homebrew.

Problems

First, I explain the four problems.

• Philosophical problem. Linux support is out of scope for this project goal.
• Technical problem. Cask is designed only for macOS.
• Resource problem. Cask maintainers have no time to maintain the extra packages.
• Legal problem. Some cask is only for macOS.

Philosophical problem

A few years ago, Homebrew was a project only for macOS, but they changed their targets. They started to support Linux packages.
This decision is an excellent contribution to the equality of packages between macOS and Linux. As the same as this case, changing the philosophy makes this repository a perfect project. Equality is essential for open source, isn't it?

Technical problem

Generally speaking, porting a package from macOS to Liunx is tricky because a machine architecture, a binary format, and everything are different. The early version of cask treated with dmg package, which is a special format for macOS and contains binary files run on the macOS. This case is the most difficult situation to port to Linux. However, porting font is not so hard because this is a zip file or tarball. Furthermore, the binary format is standardized in TTF and OTF. For our purpose, changing a font location is enough to port. Therefore, there is no technical problem.

Resource problem

I know the resource is limited. Thus, We need to focus on one target.
Hence, I do not propose merging and maintaining homebrew-fonts to this repository without my help. I can maintain the Linux port. All steps to sync the latest casks are fully automated. So, in fact, I have been keeping homebrew-fonts for four years.

Legal problem

This is perhaps the most serious problem of the four problems. Most of the fonts are licensed under the OSS Licenses, but a few fonts are not.
For example, San Francisco fonts are only for macOS. Thus, we have to take care of the license of each font for Linux.

Approach

I have a script to convert a cask file to a formula. I am running this script daily.

Note

Four years ago, I was impressed with this repository for convenience and launched a fork named linuxbrew-fonts. Thanks to the many contributions, I could keep the latest formulas, and the contributors told me the importance of equality to install the package as the same as macOS.

Two years ago, I was excited to merge the linuxbrew formulas to homebrew formulas. The equality of packages is more important than before. I propose connecting my work to your repository for equality with my respect to your work.

[MikeMcQuaid]

Thanks for the write-up @tani! I'm interested in @Homebrew/cask and particularly @vitorgalvao's thoughts here.

One thought of my own when reading this: what's the advantage of a Cask for fonts over a Formula? Are the Casks e.g. installed into my macOS fonts whereas a Formula would require a manual intervention?

[vitorgalvao]

what's the advantage of a Cask for fonts over a Formula?

If formulae can unpack files directly to ~/Library/Fonts, there’s no technical advantage. I’d welcome it. It they can’t be unpacked there but can be symlinked, that would also work (assuming macOS hasn’t broken it since the time we stopped doing it that way in casks). I remember well that fonts were introduced as casks as a sort of “why not, it’s just another artefact which can be implemented as an extension of what we already support”. It was well before HB and HBC merged.

Legal problem

In casks we had support for licenses (it was specifically was introduced because of fonts). I disliked that because it was the number one cause of held-up PRs. It caused a bunch of extra effort and an increased backlog for zero benefit. We eventually got rid of it. We only download the fonts; I don’t necessarily agree it should be our responsibility to read and interpret their licenses (they change depending on context, e.g. personal VS commercial use). But I’m not opposed to licenses being there, I just don’t want to subject myself to that problem again.

I propose connecting my work to your repository for equality with my respect to your work.

These days, for a new font to be accepted it has to be exceptionally popular. All others are automatically handled by converting from the Google Fonts repo. See CONTRIBUTING for details. I should be possible to add your automations on top of that.

Assuming fonts could be formulae on macOS, we could convert everything to fonts and use the same files for macOS and Linux, just changing the installation/symlinking directory depending on OS. Then slowly readd licenses.

[MikeMcQuaid]

It they can’t be unpacked there but can be symlinked, that would also work (assuming macOS hasn’t broken it since the time we stopped doing it that way in casks).

Can't be unpacked there but could be symlinked (although, as-is, not automatically but perhaps with some brew fonts helper tool).

I don’t necessarily agree it should be our responsibility to read and interpret their licenses (they change depending on context, e.g. personal VS commercial use).

Agreed.

[tani]

Thank you for your generous replys, @MikeMcQuaid and @vitorgalvao .

In casks we had support for licenses (it was specifically was introduced because of fonts). I disliked that because it was the number one cause of held-up PRs. It caused a bunch of extra effort and an increased backlog for zero benefit. We eventually got rid of it. We only download the fonts; I don’t necessarily agree it should be our responsibility to read and interpret their licenses (they change depending on context, e.g. personal VS commercial use). But I’m not opposed to licenses being there, I just don’t want to subject myself to that problem again.

I understand your opinion. Respecting the license, e.g., personal VS commercial use, is user responsibility and not maintainers'.

All others are automatically handled by converting from the Google Fonts repo.

Great. I will create a PR modifying a template to generate formulae simultaneously.

See CONTRIBUTING for details. I should be possible to add your automations on top of that.

Okay. I will send several PRs to run my script on your workflows. I suspect this migration takes a bit of time.

Phase 1: Updating a script to generate formulae from Google Fonts
Phase 2: Adding a new script to convert casks excepting Google Fonts to formulae
Phase 3: Integration of current workflow using the above two scripts

Then, the homebrew-cask-fonts contains two kinds of packages, i.e., formulae and casks.

Assuming fonts could be formulae on macOS, we could convert everything to fonts and use the same files for macOS and Linux, just changing the installation/symlinking directory depending on OS. Then slowly readd licenses.

After the integration, we can discuss the suitable package format for fonts like symlinking vs copying.

If anyone has any consideration, tell me, please.

[carlocab]

Sounds good!

[MikeMcQuaid]

Done: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-linux-fonts!

Thanks all.

[tani]

Thank you so much. I am happy to contribute to Homebrew project!

[carlocab]

Thanks for all your work, @tani!

[colindean]

I'm very excited for this!