Re: Next step?

On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 8:37 PM, John Hudson<tiro@tiro.com> wrote:
> We now have what seem to be two viable proposals for interoperable web font
> formats agreeable to most if not all parties, and demonstration of test code
> to produce and support both. How do we proceed from here?
>
> I have to admit that I rather like the idea of a 'Prove Richard Fink Wrong'
> race to see how quickly the non-EOTL format can be implemented and shipped
> in all major browsers. I kind of get the impression that Firefox could do it
> within a week if they set themselves to it. IE8 patch anyone?
>
> All joking aside, how best do we proceed to getting one or both of these
> proposals formalised, supported in browsers and into an W3C recommendation?

I think there are two elements:

1) finishing formalizing the specs. Both EOTL and Web OTF are pretty
close already.

2) determine what the actual recommendation is. Does it include all
three of naked fonts, EOTL and WebOTF, or some subset? Does it say
that if one supports any format, one must support all three? Is it
silent on that issue? Or does it play favorites as to which format(s)
are important?

I believe the set of questions around (2) are the thorny ones. I
expect that a recommendation saying that user agents supporting web
fonts MUST support WebOTF, and MAY support naked fonts and/or EOTL
would be the closest to a compromise that just maybe everyone involved
could live with.

Yes, I know that some folks want naked font support to be a MUST. But
given that MS won't accept that, is the compromise above a reasonable
alternative?

Regards,

T

Received on Wednesday, 12 August 2009 06:35:07 UTC