linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC] Documentation: typography refresh

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Message-ID: <87wm8z8xs7.fsf@trenco.lwn.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2025 12:46:16 -0600
From: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>
To: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@...il.com>, Linux Kernel Mailing List
 <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, Linux Documentation
 <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>
Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...nel.org>, Federico Vaga
 <federico.vaga@...a.pv.it>, Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@...il.com>, Carlos
 Bilbao <carlos.bilbao@...nel.org>, Avadhut Naik <avadhut.naik@....com>,
 Alex Shi <alexs@...nel.org>, Yanteng Si <si.yanteng@...ux.dev>, Dongliang
 Mu <dzm91@...t.edu.cn>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, Greg
 Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, Stanislav Fomichev
 <sdf@...gle.com>, David Vernet <void@...ifault.com>, Miguel Ojeda
 <ojeda@...nel.org>, James Seo <james@...iv.tech>, Daniel Vetter
 <daniel.vetter@...ll.ch>, Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC] Documentation: typography refresh

Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@...il.com> writes:

> At present, kernel documentation uses system serif font for body text.
> Some people, however, objected to it and instead prefer that the
> typography choice must be legible, consistent, and accessible (after
> all, the audience ranges developers peeking into kernel internals to
> ordinary users that skimmed through Documentation/admin-guide/).

So I have not seen the objections from "some people"; can you point to
them, please?

> To tackle the problem, follow Wikimedia's typography refresh [1].
> For the font choices, instead of using web fonts as in previous
> attempt [2], use:
>
>   * Linux Libertine, Georgia, Times for serif (used in h1 and h2
>     headings)
>   * system font for sans-serif and monospace
>
> This allows for more readability and consistency without sacrificing
> page load times and bandwidth, as the font choices is most likely
> already available on many platforms.

I am open to style changes to make the docs more readable, but I am far
from convinced that this is it.  Mixing font styles in that way will not
be universally popular, the claim of "more readability" is
unsubstantiated, and "consistency" seems out of place when you're making
the fonts deliberately inconsistent...?

jon