Re: EOT & DMCA concerns

On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 2:57 PM, Håkon Wium Lie<howcome@opera.com> wrote:
> Also sprach Thomas Lord:
>
>  > Which leaves the EOTL proposal in the uncomfortable
>  > situation of insisting that rootstrings be enforced -
>  > if not by honoring them then by rejecting any and all
>  > files that contain one.
>  >
>  > Poor Håkon would be getting angry bug reports from
>  > people who use set ups that generate EOTC and who have
>  > heard that Opera has *some* kind of EOT support - so
>  > why do their fonts work in IE but not Opera?
>
> This is a real concern. By accepting EOTL (and not EOTC) browser
> vendors accept to ship an inferior product.

Only in the sense that you are currently shipping an inferior product,
and will continue to do so.  I don't think Opera considers itself
inferior for not shipping EOT.

> Microsoft marketing would
> quickly claim that only they "fully support EOT".

That's claimable *right now*.  In fact, it's even worse.  At this
moment Microsoft could truthfully make the claim that they're shipping
the only webfont format accepted by major font foundries.  You know
that Ascender supports EOTL, and it's very likely that other foundries
will as well.

> Font vendors might
> give rebates to those who are willing to "protect" the fonts with root
> strings, at which point supporting non-IE browsers suddenly starts
> costing money.

Once again, this is happening *right now*, except it's even worse.
Many foundries aren't currently willing to license their fonts in TTF
*at all*, so the 'rebate' for using EOT with rootstrings is
essentially infinite (or at least tens or hundreds of thousands of
dollars, a figure quoted at one point for an unlimited distribution
license).

> This is not a compelling scenario, and I don't think
> consensus around EOTx is possible.

That's unfortunate.  Nothing you've said in this email is a change
from the situation *right now*, today, in the real world, except that
once you support EOTL several of the scenarios you brought up become
*less* of a problem.

Since Daggett is behind the current EOTL1.1 proposal, hopefully that
says that Moz is cool with the format.  I'm willing to make the
decision to use fonts that are usable in IE and FF, even if Opera has
to suffice with fallback, and I can justify that decision to my
bosses.  (Afaik, Webkit folks haven't weighed in at all yet, have
they?)

~TJ

Received on Tuesday, 4 August 2009 20:22:29 UTC