fontconfig packaging suggestion

[Ken Brown <kbrown at cornell dot edu>]

Yaakov,

There is a problem with having fontconfig include the Windows Fonts 
directory in /etc/fonts/fonts.conf.  Namely, the font cache for that 
directory is very likely to be out of date [*], but most users have no 
idea that they need to run fc-cache to keep it up to date.  This can 
cause slowdowns or worse for applications that use fontconfig.  See, for 
instance http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2013-12/threads.html#00246 and 
several similar reports that came later.

I propose that fontconfig *not* include the Windows Fonts directory, but 
that a new package (perhaps called fontconfig-windows-fonts) be created 
that takes over this functionality.  This could either be a subpackage 
of fontconfig or an independent package, in which case I would be glad 
to maintain it.

This package would handle the Windows Fonts directory by creating the 
appropriate file in /etc/fonts/conf.d, and it would also provide a 
script that calls fc-cache to update the Windows Fonts cache.  The 
release announcement would warn users that the script should be called 
whenever the Windows Fonts directory changed.  And I would explicitly 
advise emacs-X11 users *not* to install the package unless they really 
want to be able to use Windows fonts while running emacs under X.

WDYT?

Ken

[*] This can happen because of a Windows Update, or because software was 
added or removed, or because the user knowingly installed or removed fonts.