RE: Fonts WG Charter feedback

> From: rocallahan@gmail.com [mailto:rocallahan@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Robert O'Callahan


> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com> wrote:
>> We have, by your count, four vendors supporting a solution that currently limits font choice for users

> This is pejorative. It's font vendors who ultimately determine font availability, not browsers or our solutions. So it would be much more reasonable to say "four vendors support a solution that many
> font vendors find unsatisfactory".
It's not intended to be pejorative but yes, font vendors are currently limiting availability to one format. For today's web author, however, the outcome is in practice not that different than if the code itself somehow constrained their choice. In a way it may even be worse: code gets patched quicker than it's getting us to agree what to do.

But then if these four browser vendors knew that their preferred solution was unsatisfactory to font vendors and could result in significantly reduced user choice for an undetermined time period - a tough and risky trade-off for any web technology - then I hope they are willing to engage with said font vendors and other browser makers to find a solution that benefits all our users?

Received on Tuesday, 30 June 2009 01:42:42 UTC