Re: css3-fonts: should not dictate usage policy with respect to origin

I will take a close look at that proposal and respond further. Samsung's
primary concern is that this type of requirement (as presently written)
delves into the domain of content protection or the enforcement of business
terms. It is one thing to define a mechanism that can be used by those who
wish to control content use and dissemination; it is an entirely different
matter to mandate use of such a mechanism within a content format definition
or referencing scheme.

I expect Samsung will be satisfied only if the language is altered to make
use of such a mechanism entirely optional on the part of a UA implementer.
Also, we consider it highly undesirable (= wrong) to mix the definition of
content formats (e.g., WOFF) and content reference mechanisms (e.g.,
@font-face) with definitions of or use of usage policy control mechanisms.

To provide an analogy, the television and motion picture industry is happy
with MPEG-2 and related media formats being defined without reference to
content protection (CP) or digital rights management (DRM) mechanisms, and
*most* would have objected had the definition of MPEG-2 required use or
enforcement of a specific CP or DRM mechanism. However, that has not
prevented these industries from independently defining and deploying
effective CP and DRM to control the use of MPEG-2 content. [Substitute your
favorite A/V format for MPEG-2.]

The same principal applies to WOFF and @font-face in our view.

Regards,
Glenn

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 4:45 PM, John Hudson <tiro@tiro.com> wrote:

> Glenn,
>
> This serves as a response both to today's messages to the CSS list and also
> your recent comments to the W3C Font list regarding same origin related text
> in the WOFF spec.
>
> I wonder if you have had an opportunity to look at Anne van Kesteren's
> proposal for a generic 'From-Origin' header, which would provide a standard
> mechanism for authors to set same origin restrictions or permissions for all
> resource types and, hence, would remove the need for @font-face specific
> SOR.*
>
> See http://annevankesteren.nl/**2011/02/from-origin<http://annevankesteren.nl/2011/02/from-origin>
>
> Would such a mechanism be satisfactory to you?
>
>
> JH
>
>
>
> *The background of SOR in @font-face and WOFF is a desire to make it easy
> and reliable for webfont licensees to conform to license terms that  require
> same origin restriction. There is support for Anne's From-Origin mechanism
> in the W3C Webfonts WG, which is why the current SOR text in the WOFF spec
> is marked as being 'at risk'. The WG voted not to remove the current text,
> though, until a viable alternative mechanism is available, recognising that
> a lot of support for WOFF from the commercial font foundries is dependent on
> the modicum of IP security provided by the format as currently specified.
>