RE: Not replacing OTF/TTF linking

Monday, August 10, 2009 Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>:

>Multiple formats are fine, as long as they each have reasonably full
>interop.  Anything else is absolutely useless and not worth the time
>speccing/implementing.

I agree absolutely. What we have with EOT is a "necessary evil", a legacy format that has been amended, resuscitated, and reborn unexpectedly as EOTL - a format that allows web fonts to be 1) delivered to a huge installed base of users 2) under terms acceptable to font-producers, web authors, and browser makers. That is its only virtue.
Insofar as the "garden fence" of separation between web delivery and OS (desktop) installation is essentially the same for both EOTL and .webOTF, font-producers would be shooting themselves in the foot if they were to start cherry-picking which format to support and sanction. It makes no sense to say "yes" to one and not the other.
The day that .webOTF - whatever final form it takes - reaches the same level of market saturation that .webOTF and EOTL together would have today, is the day EOTL becomes obsolete. Deprecated. Kaput.

So when Ricardo (aka outrasfontes) writes:

>> So Foundry/Vendor X can analyze the Pros and Cons involved and decide
>> to licence its fonts using Format 1, Format 2, or both maybe. For now,
>> I'm beta-testing everything that is possible.

I hope he keeps testing like crazy. I hope he spreads the word among his colleagues about the progress that's been made here and encourages them to download the necessary files so that they, too, can test on their own.
(And make known the results - any glitches, problems, issues, etc...)
But when you entertain the idea, Ricardo, of licensing for one and not the other, please re-think that and remove it as a viable option. It isn't a viable option.

Regards,

rich

Received on Monday, 10 August 2009 14:57:17 UTC