RE: WOFF and extended metadata

On Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:28 PM Sylvain Galineau wrote:
> 
> In case that was unclear, I am extremely uncomfortable with
> implementing such a requirement in IE as well. As of today, 
> I would recommend we deviate from the spec if it required 
> licensing data to parsed and validated even when the user 
> does not ask for it.

I am afraid this discussion took sudden, unexpected and absolutely wrong turn here - this is *not*, and has never been about licensing. Metadata allows font vendors and designers to publicize the results of their work, and allows users to easily retrieve the information about fonts they see and like: font name description, who designed it, where to get it, etc. You wouldn’t believe how many times people ask a question where they are trying to guess what a font was they saw somewhere. They take pictures, post them on different forums on the web with hopes that someone may know or recognize the font and/or tell them where they can find it - metadata and the user ability to see it would be the most critical component to help people find the info they want.

The fact that license info URL may be one of the elements of extended metadata doesn’t change this - this is the information that we want user to be able to see, UA has no need to act on it (and nobody ever asked for it).

Regards,
Vlad

Received on Friday, 21 May 2010 09:01:42 UTC