-inkscape-font-specification should be removed
Migrated from https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1324809
The -inkscape-font-specification
property should be removed. While in theory it could be useful for tracking non-CSS compatable font variants, in practice it just duplicates information already stored in the various font properties while making Inkscape code more complicated and Inkscape SVG output bigger. The CSS Fonts Module Level 3 offers an alternative way of handling font variants where the variants are kept together in the same font file.
Note, a lot of work has taken place to better handle font variants inside Inkscape since this property was added (see original bug report). For example, Inkscape handles DejaVu Sans with 9 font variants properly.
Additionally, this Inkscape-specific property is known to break ePublisher by WebWorks and Apache Batik; it is ignored by ConTeXt's SVG/MetaPost conversion. A salient quote from ConTeXt's lead developer:
This is a bit like Adobe illustrator and its AI files: tons of crap needed for an editor but not really an 'eps' file for which there is a normal export. Once we decide to support all the weirdness there is no end. It's like the browser css madness.
In other words, Inkscape should strictly adhere to the SVG standard, or perhaps offer a way to export without Inkscape-specific extensions, or warn users when inserting Inkscape-specific extensions.