[tex-live] libertine wrongly packaged

[Barbara Beeton]

On Sat, 31 Dec 2011, Ulrike Fischer wrote:

    Am Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:41:36 -0800 schrieb Karl Berry:

    >    it is the question if such fonts should actually be in a texmf tree.

    > I strongly disagree with your implication.  When a document uses system
    > font lookups, it is unportable by definition.  I don't think that is a
    > good scenario to encourage.

    ? You mean TeX systems should only encourage the creation of
    documents which uses only (free) fonts which are distribuated by a
    TeX-System? 

no, but if non-free (or otherwise "variable")
fonts are used, they then need to be shipped
around with the document, e.g. embedded in a
pdf file.

otherwise, they are by definition unportable,
as karl says.

if you've ever sent a pdf file without embedded
fonts to a printer and been surprised that what
you got back wasn't what you expected, you'd
know exactly what is meant here.  (and by
"printer", i don't mean your local laser printer,
but a commercial printing house where plates
made from pdf files are put on a press for
printing.)

    Sorry but already with pdflatex quite a lot documents use
    commercial/non-free fonts e.g. corporate fonts. And the majority of
    xetex/luatex/context documents use system fonts. You only need to
    look at the documentation of fontspec or at all examples sent to the
    mailing lists/usenet groups and forums. 

doesn't change the picture with respect to printers.

    Beside this: As far as I know with TeXLive xetex doesn't find otf
    fonts in the texmf-trees with the default configuration. It can only
    use otf fonts of the system. So you must use system font lookups ... 

same here.

sorry to be snarky, but publishing is an
expensive business, and reliability is
necessary to avoid redoing a job that
should have gone right the first time.
missing fonts is not the printer's fault,
so the originator has to foot the bill.
						-- bb