Re: Protecting web fonts

At 2:57p +0000 08/22/96, Gavin Nicol wrote:

>that is why I proposed the "glyph server" idea about 18
>months or so ago. It gives people security, a method for
>micro-payments if necessary, and also allows negotiation of formats,
>among other things.

I like the idea of micropayments -- it will be a good thing when it arrives.

At 1:13p -0400 08/23/96, Gary Ruben wrote:
>lee@sq.com wrote:
>> 5 Web User Agents must be able to display font copyright and vendor contact
>>   information, using a method that is visible (e.g. a menu item, not an
>>   undocumented control-shift-meta-right-click Easter-egg option)
>Possibly a good item to add to the "document info" menu item (I know,
>not all browsers implement it - they really should).

I was thinking the same thing -- a "font usage" list in View Document Info
would be great. And taking that idea to the next level:

Log References to Fonts

I would like to see browsers keep a history file something like this:

    URL  font1 font2 font3
or
    URL  1: font1 font2 font3  2: font4 font5  3: font6 font7

where 1, 2, and 3 indicate stylesheet priority (non-stylesheet browsers
would either have only "1" or no priority indicator field).

Users could periodically review their "font-reference-history" list and
decide on font purchases, and/or if fontserving is available instruct
their browser to purchase or rent specific fonts. (rent = micropayment)

Font substitution/fauxing, while not an ultimate solution in itself, still
serves its purpose of "tiding people over" until they purchase the real
font. It has its place still.

BTW, how can a font be embedded in a platform-independent way? I think
embedding is unnecessary overhead. Let the acquisition of fonts be a
_browser_ issue, _not_ a document issue.


-Walter

__________________________________________________________________________
    Walter Ian Kaye <boo@best.com>     Programmer - Excel, AppleScript,
          Mountain View, CA                         ProTERM, FoxPro, HTML
 http://www.natural-innovations.com/     Musician - Guitarist, Songwriter

Received on Saturday, 24 August 1996 04:23:25 UTC