Re: New work on fonts at W3C

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 4:43 AM, Levantovsky, Vladimir <
Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotypeimaging.com> wrote:

> Web authors would have different tools in their possession, and I don’t
> think that font vendors would insist on having it implemented one particular
> way vs. another.
>

That's good.

So authors would have to include rootstrings in their fonts for IE
compatibility. But other browsers would ignore the rootstring and let the
author control access with same-origin + CORS. That could be confusing for
authors, and I'm not sure how font vendors would react to browsers
deliberately ignoring rootstrings.

It seems to me that authors targeting existing IE versions have to use a
tool to generate EOT fonts with the right rootstrings, no matter what. That
tool could automatically generate fonts conforming to Ascender's proposal
(or other possible proposals) at the same time. So if you're stuck with
rootstring hassles, then the extra work to generate additional font files is
minimal; mostly just adding additional clauses to your @font-face rules.

So it seems to me that eliminating that extra work by supporting EOT in all
browsers is not worth it, since we would probably lose the opportunity to
converge on something simpler for the long run, like Ascender's proposal.
(The MTX issue is orthogonal, given it could be added to Ascender's proposal
if wanted.)

Rob
-- 
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
53:5-6]