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PSA: font family name will change #77

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frankrolf opened this issue Jul 23, 2020 · 8 comments
Closed

PSA: font family name will change #77

frankrolf opened this issue Jul 23, 2020 · 8 comments
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addressed in source files completed in dev versions, but not yet released as fonts

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@frankrolf
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frankrolf commented Jul 23, 2020

With Source Serif’s optical sizes on the horizon, the decision was made to change the family name to Source Serif 4.

The reason is twofold:

  • avoid the name Pro (which used to stand for an extension from Basic Latin AL1 to CE-compatible character set AL2). Source Serif much exceeds AL2, therefore Pro does not really mean anything.
  • avoid metrics incompatibility in comparison with older versions. To make the building of the VF more reliable, the location of the default master has changed, which may result in small advance-width differences across font versions.

The family name going forward will be Source Serif 4, which corresponds to the current global version number.

@charakterziffer
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I respect the decision, but wanted to share my sorrow. I hope the following aspect was considered in the name change discussion:

How likely is it that in the next, say 10 years again there will be such a dramatic rework of the font that causes incompatibilities to earlier versions? There have been other versions before (0.x to 3.x), that didn’t require renaming. Will the font name now change every time the global version makes a big step – even when there are no compatibility issues to former versions? Or will there be e.g. Source Serif 4, version 6.080?

In my opinion a version number in the font name is not forward compatible. I would have liked to see Adobe only ditch the “Pro” and instead used “Source Serif” as the base name. (JOKE:) Then “Source Serif Neue” or “Source Serif Next” is still free for a backwards incompatible version in 10 or 15 years.

@frankrolf
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frankrolf commented Aug 10, 2020

I think the naming change will lead to a more consistent experience, which is much preferable to document reflow.
As far as I know, no software really considers the font version number when fonts in a document are replaced/updated.

  • there was a (what could be considered breaking) change from version 1.014 to version 1.017: the weight range was increased, and the weight of the heavier-than Regular styles was increased significantly. 1.014 was considered young enough to be replaced silently – nobody could have known that the three-weight version would stick around on Google Fonts for 5 more years. A name change would have been a good idea then.
  • vertical metrics changed from version 2 to version 3, caused by the addition of Vietnamese diacritics. Users replacing Source Serif with the latest version would potentially see their line spacing change.
  • major updates to commercial Adobe fonts have adopted the same naming principle, such as Minion 3 – which is clearly different from Minion Pro (and Minion MM before that) – this has been positively received
  • there will not be a Source Serif 4 v6.403. The 4 corresponds to the major version number. When a significant update warrants incrementing the major version number, the family name will also move to Source Serif 5.

@charakterziffer
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Thank you very much, Frank, for the explanation. I was not aware, that the metrics would change that often. Meanwhile I also found the thread google/fonts#1307, where the weight change of Montserrat caused much upset. And while I still don’t like version numbers in font names that much, I completely agree that it’s a practicable solution until software honors font versioning. Thanks again for your effort!

@fitojb
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fitojb commented Aug 12, 2020

Unfortunately this blocks upgrading this font in LibreOffice in the future. I am not comfortable breaking users’ templates and documents each time a font name change is done.

@frankrolf
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frankrolf commented Aug 13, 2020

@fitojb Thats the whole idea. You might inadvertently be breaking people's documents if the family name stayed the same.
It would be nice if you'd consider adding the new font family to Libre Office anyway – at a later point.

@fitojb
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fitojb commented Aug 13, 2020

Do you really expect to change things like the line height, now that diacritics support is complete? Minor advance width changes are livable, but this is too much.

frankrolf added a commit that referenced this issue Aug 13, 2020
Revert familyOS2.fea completely to 6b0b016.

This means that there will be no line-height change from Source Serif Pro to
Source Serif 4. Hopefully, this also minimizes some of the concerns brought up
in #77.
@frankrolf
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@fitojb Diacritics support is never complete! ;-) (really – virtually all other issues are about adding more diacritics).
Although the scope of the family will extend significantly, there was not really an urgent reason to change the vertical metrics with that extension. I edited a handful of important glyphs (such as the inferior parentheses) to fall into the range of the previous metrics (see commit above). This means there will be no change in line height from Source Serif Pro to Source Serif 4.

@frankrolf frankrolf added the addressed in source files completed in dev versions, but not yet released as fonts label Sep 28, 2020
@frankrolf
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Source Serif 4 has been released:
https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif/releases/tag/4.004R
See further explanation on this name change in the release notes linked above.

@frankrolf frankrolf pinned this issue Jan 26, 2021
thewilkybarkid added a commit to thewilkybarkid/thewilkybarkid.dev that referenced this issue Apr 15, 2021
The Source Serif Pro font was [renamed to Source Serif][Rename].

[Rename]: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
wentasah added a commit to wentasah/nixpkgs that referenced this issue Mar 10, 2022
Recently, Source Sans/Serif Pro fonts got renamed. The "Pro" suffix
was replaced with the major version of the font name.

In the case of Source Serif, the change was announced in
adobe-fonts/source-serif#77 and besides the
name font metric have been changed too. Therefore, documents using the
old "Pro" version might look differently when the font is changed to
the new "4" version.

In the case of Source Sans, the metrics seem not to have been
changed (adobe-fonts/source-sans#192), but
this comment (adobe-fonts/source-sans#192 (comment))
suggests that it might happen in the future.

Due to the above, it makes sense to keep both old "Pro" and
new (numbered) fonts as separate packages. This commit reintroduced
the old "Pro" versions.

It seems that Arch Linux is also distributing both versions:
https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/blob/0d70461e5a26cde02cadfda64078eb93192c6caa/trunk/PKGBUILD

Closes NixOS#157972
tastytea added a commit to tastytea/gentoo that referenced this issue Aug 14, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
tastytea added a commit to tastytea/gentoo that referenced this issue Aug 14, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
tastytea added a commit to tastytea/gentoo that referenced this issue Sep 4, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
tastytea added a commit to tastytea/gentoo that referenced this issue Sep 10, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
tastytea added a commit to tastytea/gentoo that referenced this issue Sep 10, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
tastytea added a commit to tastytea/gentoo that referenced this issue Sep 12, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
gentoo-bot pushed a commit to gentoo/gentoo that referenced this issue Sep 15, 2022
media-fonts/source-pro installs 3 font families. A while ago the serif
and sans-serif fonts were renamed (and will be renamed again) while the
monospace font kept the same name. Furthermore, the fonts now have the
major version in their name.
    The fonts will be split into their own packages and the old package
will be masked since it isn't bump-able.

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/865103
Upstream-announcement: adobe-fonts/source-serif#77
Signed-off-by: Ronny (tastytea) Gutbrod <gentoo@tastytea.de>
Signed-off-by: Joonas Niilola <juippis@gentoo.org>
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@fitojb @frankrolf @charakterziffer and others