RE: EOT-Lite File Format

>From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On Behalf
>Of Thomas Lord


>That's called "intolerance in what you receive"
>and while Internet standards must not forbid
>such intolerance, neither may they require it.
>("may?  according to what authority?" - answer:
>"common sense - well, at least the common sense
>that comes with experience").

We're not writing an IETF standard. We're defining a
file format. We're perfectly allowed to say that
a certain header value requires the file to be ignored.
We do that with the magic number. We do that with the
version number. We could do that with other fields.

>You have a usable font file but the standard
>says "you MUST NOT use it" -- yes, that is DRM.

You don't know if you have a usable font file.
If checking for zero vs. non-zero is DRM then
everything is.

>I am thinking of the situation of a UA maker who
>goes ahead and implements support for TTCOMPRESSED
>and/or XORENCRYPT... as an example.  They have done
>a perfectly useful thing in support of the lawful activity
>of some users yet if the Recommendation says they
>"MUST NOT" do so then at the very least they lose their
>"conforming implementation" badge and at worse come under
>legal attack for spreading a "circumvention" device.

In which case the UA maker implemented EOT, not EOTL.
Which means they are not only allowed but required to
render the file. The fact that it uses compression and
XOR-encoding makes it both invalid and unusable for
EOTL-conforming clients.

Which means IE already is a circumvention device for...
...files that only IE will be able to use ?

Anyway. We're not lawyers.