RE: Fonts WG Charter feedback

>From: John Daggett [mailto:jdaggett@mozilla.com]
>Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 7:46 PM
>To: Sylvain Galineau
>Cc: www-font
>Subject: Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback

>>> Implicit in both this and their old proposal is the assumption that
>>> this is the *only* web font format, that TTF/OTF fonts are not
>>> linkable resources.  So web authors using either free fonts or fonts
>>> with a license that permits direct linking would be forced through
>>> extra hoops for no tangible benefit whatsoever.
>>>
>>> Obfuscated/compression schemes are fine but not if it implies that we
>>> make things harder rather than easier for some users.
>>
>> Aren't today's authors 'forced through extra hoops' even if the font
>> is licensed for direct linking as soon as they want to ensure the same
>> experience for all their users ?
>
>You mean to support IE usage?  Sure, but there's not much I can do about
>that expect hope that Microsoft commits the resources to improve
>typography on the web and not just in platform-specific products like
>WPF and Silverlight.  EOT may have been supported since the days of Rome
>in IE but it still lacks support for basic font descriptors
>(font-weight, font-style) and the ability to use Postscript CFF fonts.
>To say nothing of the problems with loading Postscript CFF fonts for use
>with Uniscribe, *sigh*.  These aren't hoops but brick walls.

Given this, how does Ascender's original proposal result in a world that is more painful to web authors
than what we have today ?

Received on Tuesday, 30 June 2009 03:12:38 UTC