RE: WOFF2 file extension and media type

Hi David,

Thank you for your prompt response. I agree that file extension ".woff2" would be ideal so, if there are no objections from anyone and no limitations on the string length from any existing software vendors (anyone?) - let's finalize this as our recommendation and add it to the spec.

With regard to media type - I am a bit hesitant to recommend "fonts/woff2". The top level "fonts" type isn't registered yet and I am not sure how long would it take for the registration application to be processed by IANA. The subtype in the "application" tree is definitely an easier choice since the registration is going to be quick and the positive outcome is almost guaranteed. This however brings up another question - how critical is it to have the media type registered? Who is going to benefit from it? I am surprised that Google folks unilaterally decided to use "fonts/woff2" type that has no legs to stand on. I always assumed that media types have to be registered and universally understood in order to be a useful utility, but if one can just invent a new type and start using it without registering and making it known to the rest of the world - how important this media type business really is? (I am asking this questions because after many years of discussions about it I still do not understand the value of media type and whether putting significant efforts into the registration procedure would pay off in pragmatic sense.)

Thank you,
Vlad


From: David Kuettel [mailto:kuettel@google.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 1:02 PM
To: Levantovsky, Vladimir
Cc: Chris Lilley; w3c-webfonts-wg (public-webfonts-wg@w3.org)
Subject: Re: WOFF2 file extension and media type

Thank you Chris and Vlad.

For Google Fonts, we are serving the font files with a .woff2 extension and with a mime type of "font/woff2". So a big +1 for recommending the ".woff2" extension in the specification.

As part of our early testing/verification ~50% of the Google Fonts collection are currently being served as WOFF 2.0 for Chrome 36 (which is in Beta).  Things are looking good so far.

This email is a great reminder that I need to double down on capturing the benefits of a new top-level font/* mime type.  It would be great to start this process in parallel...

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 7:44 AM, Levantovsky, Vladimir <Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com<mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com>> wrote:
Thank you Chris!

All, this is a straw poll for ".woff2" file extension - any objections or concerns / limitations of usability?

Thank you,
Vlad


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Lilley [mailto:chris@w3.org<mailto:chris@w3.org>]
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 10:12 AM
To: Levantovsky, Vladimir
Cc: w3c-webfonts-wg (public-webfonts-wg@w3.org<mailto:public-webfonts-wg@w3.org>)
Subject: Re: WOFF2 file extension and media type

Hello Vladimir,

Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 4:03:43 PM, you wrote:


> I've been contacted privately by a developer who asked me about two
> things - what would be the appropriate font file extension for WOFF2
> and what is the media type to be used when the fonts in WOFF2 format are served.

I agree that we should define this.

> We haven't yet discussed the file extension at all - the assumed file
> extension was .woff2 although I am not sure if having
> five-character-long file extension is okay in all circumstances.

The main restriction on file extensions was those older operating systems which required an extension to be three or less characters.
(MS-DOS and older versions of Windows (1,2,3,3.1,95,98,ME).

This was a problem in the early days, .html thus became .htm on DOS and non-NT versions of Windows. Since Windows 2000, the three letter extension is not a factor any more.

>  As
> an alternative, I suggest to consider .wof2  but this is merely a
> proposal -

.woff is four letters and has not been a problem, so my suggestion is to formalize the assumed .woff2 and it is simple and easy.

> I'd rather have us to decide on this and announce it publicly as soon
> as possible - the folks are waiting and the guy who contacted me with
> these questions is not alone, I am sure.

Agreed.

> As to the media type - we did discuss it in the past and while we all
> seem to agree that having the top-level 'font' type would be ideal -
> we are not there yet. Applying for the top-level type would be a huge
> undertaking and something that  may not bring the results soon enough
> for developers who need it now.

Yes.

>  I am wondering if we
> should (at least in the near term) consider something similar to what
> we did for WOFF 1.0 and register a media type as part of the
> "application" sub-tree, e.g. "application/font-woff2"  Comments?

I agree that we should do this, and doing so does not preclude any later change if font/* goes ahead. Developers need this now.

I will take an action to draft a MIME registration appendix, similar to the one for WOFF 1.0.




--
Best regards,
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org<mailto:chris@w3.org>