- From: Håkon Wium Lie <howcome@opera.com>
- Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:17:23 +0200
- To: Thomas Lord <lord@emf.net>
- Cc: www-font <www-font@w3.org>
Also sprach Thomas Lord: > > The W3C specification must remain format-agnostic: any attempt to > > favor a certain format will lead to uproar from one camp or the other. > > Where do you think there would be uproar against: > > 1. Defining the wrapper I've described. > 2. Requiring that if a UA support font format X, > it must support X-within-that-wrapper > 3. Saying UAs MUST support OT and/or TT, and > consequently MUST support the wrapped version > of same. > > I can see that it isn't a "done deal" but I see > cautious warming to the idea, not uproar. Where > do you see uproar? The uproar would be against saying, normatively, that UAs must support format X. I would certainly scream out if EOT was favored in any way. > > > On the one hand, you are in effect calling for a > > > "mod_font" plugin for Apache that autoconverts to > > > EOT if it guesses the UA is IE. > > > That's a decent way of dealing with the fact that there's roughly a > > billion IE browsers out there, and that other browsers support TT/OT > > linking. > > It is a detriment to W3C's standing if that's the > result we get stuck on. That's part of what I mean > by "adults in the room". The "mod_font" solution is not > decent if you think about how it multiplies and distributes > labor costs and diminishes the quality of the result. The labor costs of mod_font is negligible compared to the cost of creating, debugging, and deploying a new font format. > > One <link> element is all that must be added to use > > webfonts this way. We dealt with PNG in its introductory phase, and > > fonts seem easier: no content is lost if the font can't be reached. > > I wonder about what the next Donal Knuth might > think of that. :-) > > > There should be no normative language that requires > > > display of the meta-data ("SHOULD", not "MUST"). > > > Even so, I'm afraid the courts may rule differently. > > Can you substantiate that fear or is it purely > your own issue? Should *anyone* share that fear > for good reason? If so, what reason? W3C specs have, AFAIK, no legal binding under any jurisdiction. I doubt a W3C Rec would trump DMCA (or similar laws in other jurisdictions). So, yes, I think there's a chance that courts may rule differently. Of course, you don't know until the answer until the court has ruled, and the appeals have been made etc. > > > By convention it can be used for licensing data but by no means > > > does the presence or absence of the data or its presentation > > > comprise an enforcement mechanism or its circumvention. > > > Would I feel safe going through US immigration with this assurance? > > Probably not. > > Your comment is inappropriate to the forum, even > if it is politically astute in drawing attention > to the alarming level of infringements upon civil rights > that we see in the security apparatus of the US, not > least at airport and immigration security. In other > words, I'm not sorry you said that but it was formally > wrong of you to say it here, in this forum, in this context > and so I won't directly respond to it. The problem isn't limited to the US, and I think it's fair to mention it as it will factor into the decision-making of software developers. For some people, even in Norway, it has been very real: http://people.opera.com/howcome/2008/atypi/ -h&kon Håkon Wium Lie CTO °þe®ª howcome@opera.com http://people.opera.com/howcome
Received on Tuesday, 30 June 2009 00:18:14 UTC