- From: Erik van Blokland <evb@knoware.nl>
- Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 01:18:26 +0200
- To: "w3 webfonts" <www-font@w3.org>
In all proposals, webfonts security relies on the integrity of browsers, the integrity of operating systems, some part of the process being kept secret, or best of all, the integrity of users. The first two can and will be hacked with relative ease. Furthermore, it is unwise to believe in the possibility of secrets, and finally, the integrity of users towards fonts has been thoroughly tested in the world of personal computing already: every fontsale represents between 30 and 50 copied fonts. If already *anything* that sits on a webserver has to be considered to be public and accessible to the world, why entertain such vain hopes that it would be possible to keep something away from an user on his own computer? When operating systems become browsers, keeping a font exclusive to one app is a _very_ easy hack to get around, since there are also fonts open to all apps available on the same system. Flip a bit, find free font. Webfonts are things that primarily need to create bitmap images on screens across the world. Most usage will be on screen. Print is another issue that can be solved seperately already. Let's get the screen right before giving away the fonts. Critics say "screen resolution will increase, warranting outine fonts at the user end". Typedesigner says "that will be some time in the future, and even if it becomes a major issue (involving more than 20% of users) HTML will be *several* generations further". Anything that's decided on as the webfonts standard will be obsolete in two years anyway, just because the introduction of type is going to raise the expectation of webtypography *so much* that current outline based proposals have to be completely revamped anyway. So why start enabling worldwide distribution of fonts with potential dramatic effects, when some smart tricks with fontservers, pixelfonts and some resolution information in HTTP protocol can provide enough *time* to make a solution that is pleasing to all involved for the long term. Already sites are beginning to provide fonts to their viewers. Many of these are badly hinted (ripoff) PC truetype fonts. These fonts are scalable, but won't provide good results in all resolutions, neither do they print well. Yet people like it enough to maintain the supply. A webfonts system that provides the possibility to deliver appropriate pixelfonts to the client, without enabling access to outlines is the best solution for the time being. The fact that there are fonts at all will be blast, and it leaves room for better technology to be developed. erik van blokland, LettError type & typography Home of the Randomfonts, Trixie, BitPull & GifWrap. letterror http://www.letterror.com typelab http://www.dol.com/TypeLab/
Received on Monday, 26 August 1996 19:17:17 UTC