[tex-k] Dvips fix for font in EPSF improperly downloaded

[Tomas G. Rokicki]

All your points are good, but I clain the "fix" is still an improvement,
and for that reason I am leaving it in there.

Perhaps I am naive, but if someone gives me an environment in which
there are multiple, and distinctly different, fonts, with the same
/FontName, I claim all bets are off.  I have encountered this before
and it's not a good situation.  At this time I simply don't have a
solution for a case like this.

On the other hand, I do agree that it is better to rename the TeX
fonts if we will partially subset them.  I believe we should do this
(assuming technically we can make it work; I do not know that we
cannot, nor do I know of specific issues, but I would not be surprised
if this breaks something).  Of course there are legal issues with
renaming a font too, most likely.  :-)  This is something to consider
for the next release (not only of dvips but also of pdftex, I believe).
But I believe this is a substantial change to a piece of code that I am
simply not familiar enough with to mess with.  I do know that I have
had in the past substantial problems with just changing the UniqueID
of the font; different interpreters were very unhappy with some of the
changes I made and I had to back them out.  But that's just a technical
issue.

On the legal issue:  I agree a warning may be appropriate whenever a
font is included in its entirety.  Right now dvips turns a deaf ear
to these issues, but it is perhaps time for it to support at the
very least a warning message.

Another alternative is to run all included graphics through a
companion interpreter that's been configured to only collect information
on what characters and what fonts are used (probably by redefining
show and a few other operators).  But this is another substantial
undertaking.

Just so we are very clear:  is it your position that this change that
was made should be reversed?  Or improved before the next release?
Both of these positions would be troublesome for me.  If it's just a
question of, here's some additional issues to consider and let's try
to get a solution to them as quickly as possible, I could not agree
more.

I must say that I've had no indication that the problems you mention
are severe (i.e., causing problems for people), but perhaps that is
because I don't follow most of the TeX groups.

I believe this is a discussion that we should have as part of a larger
group, so I am happy to have gotten your note, and I hope our
collected wisdom on these groups will steer us all in the appropriate
direction.  But for now I've got to get a point release out the
door.

-tom