[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Message not deliverable
REMOV REMOVE REMOVE!!!!
----------
: From: Erik van Blokland <evb@KNOWARE.NL>
: To: w3 webfonts <www-font@w3.org>
: Subject: Embeddable fonts in Communicator
: Date: Thursday, February 20, 1997 1:48 PM
:
: Fahrner quoting Andrew Joslin:
: >The outline information in the PFR is encrypted to prevent piracy.
Hackers
: >could conceivably crack the PFR's but they'd have to collect a lot of
them
: >and do major tweakage in Fontographer before they could assemble a maybe
: >complete character set including redoing hinting, character mapping and
: >kerning (can you spell get a life?). I think the labor involved and
: >difficulty in assembling COMPLETE coherent character sets will make
font
: >pirating from PFR's a miserable occupation.
:
: The same methods Truedoc uses to assemble a font these fonts can be
: disassembled. Character collecting can easily be automated, especially
: when the whole font machine is accessible by writing a Netscape-plugin
: for it. Subsetting is a compression method, not a piracy preventer. Then
: the whole security hinges on the encryption, which can be broken in 10
: minutes, as Clive has proven.
:
: This might not even be necessary when authoring software emerges that
: allows Truedoc fonts that arrive from one webpage to be added to another
: one. Recycling fontdata. Perhaps not all characters are present, but
: perhaps not all are needed either. Current descriptions of
: Truedoc/Netscape systems do not specify whether Truedoc fonts can be
: re-used, neither do they promise that this will not be the case in the
: future, neither is there a garantee that Truedoc will not be licensed to
: companies with shady background in type.
:
: The clever semantics of Bitstream are getting old. A file containing a
: typeface description is a font by any standard. Calling the Truedoc fonts
: 'portable font resources' is a way of being gramatically correct when
: saying Truedoc documents don't contain fonts. But lets not kid ourselves,
: for all intents and purposes, PFR's are fonts. They're just as portable
: as Truetype fonts or type1 fonts, and contain just as many curves and
: serifs.
: PFR relies on a Truedoc rasteriser being present on the client system,
: just other fonts like to be rastered by their own rasterisers. There is
: nothing remarkably portable about Truedoc, you still have to be in luck
: that some company somewhere decides to write software for your platform.
: Whether that's Microsoft, Adobe or Bitstream does not really matter.
: Their approach to intellectual property does matter. Microsoft and Adobe
: are at least trying to address the issues. Bitstream only invented a
: blanket excuse to the entire system and ignores it for the rest. Note
: that Bitstream has become yet another internet wannabe, and has severed
: most ties to their typographic past. The legal issues tied to Truedoc in
: most countries not USA will certainly be investigated and possibly tried
: in court. It's curious that Netscape is getting tied up with such a risky
: technology.
:
: Bitstream has used the argument that Truedoc fonts are inseperable from
: the document as a way to illustrate that the PFR's really are not fonts.
: But this is losing credibility, as PFR fonts are now downloaded
: _separately_ from a server 'just like a gif or jpeg'. That means that
: unless something incredibly complicated (signatures?) happens, PFR fonts
: can be linked to by any other document as well, perhaps from an entirely
: different domain.
: Then the world needs only one single PFR on a site for every typeface
: used in the world! Subsetting this font can be easily subverted by making
: a document that contains all characters. PFR fonts can be offered as
: incentives, they can be traded, posted, mailed, reused. It's piracy
: coated with a thin layer of credibility. Serious flaws that threatens all
: type manufacturers.
:
: As long as fonts cost money, there will be an incentive for getting them
: for free. Truedoc fonts in Netscape make that a whole lot easier. Better
: typographic capabilities for the web are quite necessary. But whether it
: is worth to put the whole type industry at risk for a small temporary
: advantage over someone else's browser is highly doubtful.
:
: erik van blokland, LettError: Typestuff
: letterror http://www.letterror.com
:
: