Re: WebFonts ready for use

On Apr 30, 2008, at 3:58 PM, Dave Crossland wrote:

> 2008/4/30 Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>:
>>
>> it would make it difficult for authors to serve a font only  
>> licensed for
>> embedding in documents they produce, since the UA may use it for  
>> other
>> documents without any deliberate action on the part of either the  
>> site or
>> the user.
>
> I think it is a mistake to use the term "embedding" in connection with
> web-fonts, because it is misleading about how HTTP works; "linking" is
> a much more accurate term.

I think this is not entirely clear-cut. Yes, technically, the only way  
to truly "embed" a font would be to include an inline <style> block in  
the HTML document with a data: URL referencing the font. On the other  
hand, there seems to be some precedent for considering it "embedding"  
to link to an on-site EOT font. Similarly, the <embed> element in HTML  
embeds a resource that is loaded by dereferencing an external URL.

In general, "embed" is a poor choice of terminology in the context of  
the Web, but unfortunately it seems to be standard in the area of font  
licensing. It would be better if font licenses were more specific  
about what is and is not allowed.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Friday, 2 May 2008 00:10:45 UTC