Re: the discussion is over, resistance time

On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 19:35 -0700, Thomas Phinney wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 6:54 PM, Thomas Lord<lord@emf.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 17:52 -0700, Thomas Phinney wrote:
> >> Of course, if you want to take Microsoft's disinterest in supporting
> >> naked TTF/OTF fonts on web servers as a declaration of war, that is
> >> your perogative.
> >
> > How else could one possibly take it?
> 
> As a disinclination to support something that they believe would be
> bad for the overall font developer ecosystem.

In what way do think that they think it would be 
bad for the overall font developer ecosystem?

I believe we've answered all of the restricted-license
vendors stated concerns in counter-proposals.  What
do you think we missed, really?



> >> significantly reducing the
> >> revenue type designers get from anyone except those big corporations
> >> that can't be seen participating in font piracy.
> >
> > That is hardly what's at stake here.
> 
> You may be right, but what's important is that my statement is how the
> large majority of font vendors perceive it. 

That is a political observation and I hope I
have aided their perception.


> That is what they're
> afraid of. I would infer that Microsoft either agrees with them, or at
> least thinks it's worth placating them.

Evidently, sorta.  Note that at least one person speaking
from within monotype endorsed my counter-proposal.  I think
Microsoft might be over-reaching here where some font vendors
might be happy without MSFT's hard-line.


> For my part I don't know. It's an open question whether the increased
> sales (from new uses for fonts) would outweigh the increased piracy 

That has nothing to do with a W3C Recommendation.  You gonna
try to put that in a Rationale of a Recommendation?

> if
> raw desktop fonts on web servers was a fully-embraced standard. The
> font vendors could be right, or you could, and it's hard to tell
> without simply trying it to find out. They don't want to take that
> chance, really, so most are not going to permit that kind of usage in
> their licensing terms any time soon.

Fine, then they can simply not license their fonts for
web use.  The rest of us will get by, just fine.  Ask
Zapf.

-t




> Cheers,
> 
> T
> 

Received on Thursday, 2 July 2009 02:46:19 UTC