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

Glenn wrote:

>     * Samsung believes the issue is whether an existing implementation
>       of @font-face that does not employ same origin can claim
>       conformance to a final, published REC that wishes to apply the
>       same origin mandate to all implementations, whether new or old;
>       the issue of whether such an old implementation is "experimental"
>       or merely "early" is unrelated to our concern, since it is
>       desirable to (finally) have a complete and final specification for
>       @font-face that can be referenced by industry compliance testing
>       and compliance certification processes;

As I wrote the other day -- but to which I don't see a response --, my 
concern about your proposed wording is that it not only covered existing 
UAs but opened the door to new UAs dodging the same origin requirement 
for webfonts if they do not provide same origin support for other resources.

*If*, as you state above, your concern is only with 'old' 
implementations, then it seems to me that what we have is a classic 
'grandfathering' situation, in which something that predates regulation 
is documented and permitted without prejudicing application of 
regulation henceforth. I've not personally come across this in the 
context of software standards, but as someone who lives in a rural area 
where some properties predate modern land use and building codes I am 
certainly familiar with what is necessary to grandfather-in a variance. 
The key thing is that grandfathering must be explicit, and you can't 
achieve it by round-about methods, which is what your proposed wording 
seems to me to do, i.e. to define characteristics of the variance to be 
accepted, which runs the danger of establishing precedence, rather than 
explicitly defining the *timing* of the variance.

Would Samsung be content with wording that a) accepted a variance of 
non-implementation of webfont same origin restriction in UAs made before 
a particular date (to be determined, and presumably associated with some 
milestone in the process of publishing the related recommendations), and 
b) defined the measure beyond which updates to such UAs would require 
implementation of same origin for webfonts (and this could perhaps be 
defined in terms of same origin for other resources).

JH

Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2011 02:40:40 UTC