RE: OpenType, get it right

On March 15, 1997 Clive Bruton <clive@typonaut.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>This isn't OpenType, as your own research has shown (below), except =
>you seem to ignore it's meaning and choose to repeat it verbatim.

In this much you are correct. This is not an OpenType problem, it is a problem
with Microsoft's implementation of TrueType embedding in IE 4.0.

>I'll use the word "stupid" a lot in the next paragraph or so, just to =
>emphasise how stupid I think this is. Stupid companies may well *not* =
>have set their TT embedding options to No Embedding, that doesn't =
>make them any more or less stupid now than when they first started =
>doing it several years ago. The fact *is* that Non Embeddable fonts =
>don't have this problem, other kinds have for a looooong time.
>
>So who's stupid?
>
>...However, just like TrueType Embedding this has to be a =
>cooperative thing, ie applications have to recognise and abide by the =
>rules set.

Uh, Clive? I'd like to point out a couple things. FIrst of all, the rules as
told to us by Microsoft back in 1991 have changed quite a bit. Back then the
embedding bits pertained to the embedding of fonts within documents which were
not forseeably accessible to anyone/everyone on the internet. Embedded fonts on
the web was not part of the equation at that time. We foundries set the bits in
our TrueType fonts based upon a completely different risk-to-value ratio.

Secondly, we were told we could set the *level* of access users would have if the
font was embeddable. After all, there ins't just one bit Clive. You can disallow
embedding completely, you can allow read-only embedding for view and print, and
you can allow fully installable embedding. Anyone who chose the first or last
option has no worries today, as the IE 4 bug does not affect them. Those in the
middle, the folks who wanted people to view and print but not steal their fonts
are the ones who are hurt by this bug. 

Clive, you said yourself:
>this has to be a =
>cooperative thing, ie applications have to recognise and abide by the =
>rules set.

Well guess what? Microsoft did not cooperate. They did not abide by their own
rules. If the foundries affected by this bug are stupid, it could only be for
believing that the rules of the game would not be changed by Microsoft.


Thomas Rickner
Monotype Typography

Received on Friday, 24 October 1997 09:21:07 UTC