RE: WOFF without SOR?

> John Hudson wrote:
> 
>  > Bill Davis wrote:
>  >
>  > > http://dev.w3.org/webfonts/WOFF/spec/ states: "When using such fonts,
> user  > > agents MUST implement a 'same-origin restriction' on the
> downloading of WOFF  > > files using the same-origin matching algorithm
> described in the HTML5  > > specification..."
>  >
>  > > What part of "MUST" does Opera not understand?
>  >
>  > I presume we have Anne van Kesteren to thank for this. At the  > face-
> to-face meeting in Lyon
> 
> John, Bill, I don't your rethoric advances your case. Neither does
> singling our people or companies.
> 
> The last time I checked, Chrome, Safari and Opera didn't support SOR for
> WOFF files.

Yes. But Firefox and IE do. Doesn't that count ? The first implementation 
- Firefox - did support it from the beginning and Mozilla was very public 
about this requirement. With two major implementations that agree on doing 
this I'm confident we can specify it. Will you object ?

> The WOFF submission didn't include SOR, and adding it to the WD has been
> controversial.

It was agreed very early on; the WG's charter, which Opera accepted, says
that the conformance specification will 'reference...access policies such 
as same-origin and CORS'. 

'Controversial' here really means 'Opera doesn't want to do it'. WebKit
never clearly articulated whether/why in a public forum afaik.

> Personally, I can see that it makes sense; it prevents people from
> leeching bandwidth off innocent users. I don't think it's a crucial part
> of the "protection" that WOFF provides, but I understand if others
> disagree.

It was a crucial part of making font vendors agree to license fonts
as WOFF. Just like not serving fonts in their raw form. 

Can you explain the benefit of Opera not conforming to this requirement ? 

> Given that the WD describes the "WOFF File Format 1.0", I can understand
> why people argue that the spec shouldn't make demands at the HTTP level.
> Architecturally, it seems clear that the WOFF format is orthogonal to SOR.
> I therefore suggest we split the SOR part out from the WOFF WD and place
> it in a separate draft.

Whether this requirement is in one or two specs should not prevent Opera 
from delivering an interoperable implementation. 

> For the record, this is consistant with my position, as expressed
> here:
> 
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webfonts-wg/2010May/0012.html

Yes, you support the participation of someone who never shows up - if it
wasn't for you Opera's participation here would be non-existent - and has 
always argued this entire effort was unnecessary, including infantile 'Fuck 
the Foundries' logos on his blog. The fact that you have to regularly provide 
some cover for your representative should indicate how little confidence
Opera's choice inspires among other members of this WG. It's too bad. But
since Anne is practically never around he also does little harm, at least. 
We're far more interested in the interoperability of the code you ship.

So I'd still rather move on. If Opera or WebKit want to make some misguided 
statement by being non-conformant with this requirement, it's their call. 
If Mozilla and Microsoft prefer better interoperability and a specification 
that reflects it, it's their call too. As long as you're OK with that, so
am I. 

So I'll ask again: will you object to this requirement ?

Received on Wednesday, 26 January 2011 14:19:48 UTC