RE: A way forward

>From: John Daggett [mailto:jdaggett@mozilla.com]


>If we're talking about supporting a common format, that format should
>have a defined behavior.  If we use a legacy format like EOT, then the
>"new" behavior gets mixed up with the old behavior; is IE supposed to
>reject cross-site EOT loads?  Or is that just a deficiency of EOT in
>general? If it's clear that EOT is a Microsoft-only format, those
>problems remain squarely on your shoulders, we don't have to share
>those associations.

You're moving the goalposts. All the issues you and Jonathan bring up
are issues IE would have to fix if we implemented raw font linking as
well. They have nothing to do with EOT, EOT-Lite or any other font
encoding solution.

The cross-site load issue you keep bringing up already exists between
Firefox and Safari. As it did not prevent you from shipping an incompatible
solution, others should not be held to a higher standard without due cause.

>Frankly, the whole legacy issue seems like bull to me.  It's a very
>minor piece of code to put in a shim layer in IE that swizzles
>whatever commonly agreed upon format folks come up with (.webfont,
>ZOT) into an EOT format.  Since you're part of the OS, you can push it
>out with a minor OS update and worry about fixing the overall
>@font-face behavior later.  Maybe even fix CFF support while you're at
>it.  Would you like me to write it for you?  Or just feed Sergey
>a few beverages of his choosing?

Given that skipping a header is so much work and requires defining a whole
standard of cross-browser behaviors (speaking of bull) I am certainly
not going to add this much work on your plate but we appreciate the offer :)

(Sergey stands by with a list of beverages...)

>Um, that seems unproductive at this point.  Microsoft has been pushing
>EOT for well over a year now and no other browser vendor has shown any
>interest in it.  Berating me isn't going to change that.

First, we are not talking about EOT, we are talking about EOT-Lite. Second,
no other browser has shown any interest in giving it a fair hearing, which
is not quite the same thing.

No one is a berating you. The issues you objected to have been removed. The
ones you bring up now are orthogonal to any of the file formats proposed on this
list; some are specific to IE and require work from us, others already exist
between your browser and others that implement raw font linking. As such,
claims that EOT-Lite is too much work will be met with disbelief. Sorry.

>If we're going to create a new format we should be creating one with
>consistent, agreed-upon behavior, not one that simply creates a new
>set of inconsistencies.

I don't see why a new file format - be it EOT-Lite, .webfont, or ZOT -
should be held to a standard of behavioral UA interop that raw font
linking did not have to meet. If Mozilla, Apple and Opera don't need to
agree on a common cross-site origin policy, on what ground do they put
the burden on others to fix the incompatibility they chose to release ?

Or is it one of those delaying tactics that is only wrong when the
perpetrator is Microsoft ?

>Sounds reasonable.  I think an informal group would be better to start
>to iron out a rough set of details, that would be faster and simpler.
>Then charter a WG as needed.  It would be best to have font vendors,
>both large and small.

It sure would be.

Received on Friday, 24 July 2009 14:53:36 UTC