Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback -- iNDIFFERENT OBSERVATION

Hi ya'll.  I'm a retired business programmer/analyst (39 years) mostly insurance, finance, hospitals.  Sometime in the last 2 years I was very frustrated finding some math symbols and went to a 'newsgroup' site.  I as a substitute teacher (math major) and  was trying to do as much work as possible using my desktop -- because I type much faster than write by hand.  Somehow a lot of your exchanges also got sent to me, and I found them interesting -- although I specialized in mainframes - but concepts are still very similar.  

One company required that new projects and/or major modifications should have a 'pay back' (cost vs benefits) within 5 years -- unless it was required by statute, regulations, etc.  

Some PC/Web users such as myself utilize fonts to a great degree.  Personally, I use a very limited set - because I encountered fonts on my home computer that were not recognized on the school system (it has more limited IS funding than I do -- and I'm using an older XP system, and haven't had the cash to advance to a flat screen or a laptop.  As a matter of fact, I only recently upgraded to broadband - from dialup.

My thought is that MOST USERS don't give a darn.  But since I grew up (1960-70's) having to always consider transfer speed, how much tape 800,000 data records would require (14 reels) I have a great appreciation of your debate  I can not even begin to relate my frustrations over having to order a CD rather than download an upgrade because of how long it would take on dialup.  I recall one - from Microsoft - Windows 95 - that took over 10 hours!!

Yes you fellows do need to come to a REASONABLE compromise.  PLEASE keep in mind that users such as myself (and many more that have zero comprehension of transfer rates) need to have the best system with the least effor on user part.  I'm sure you know that 'time is money' for business folks, and even computer illiterate teachers.  We have a principal that doesn't even check her own e-mail -- .  The common user does not have time to worry about how to work around things that won't work with 'cut and paste'!!  If executives, superintendents, teachers, regular programmers, etc., etc., assistants, et. al, have to worry about that -- then it won't get done.  IT technical staffs are too thin why I was pushed into retirement before I desired) to have to babysit the managers and staff.  KEEP THE BUSINESS COST/BENEFIT concept in mind -- even if it means DON'T USE fonts that have a COPYRIGHT question.  We don't HAVE to have EVERYTHING.

We 'technical' people have enough difficulty communicating with the work force as it isl  That is one reason that I always tried to follow the KISS standard (Keep It Simple S.....).  Besides, I believe we all recognize that there will always be 'jerks' that do their best to 'break' or 'beat' the system.

So much for my soapbox speach.  Note: I retired in 2003 (November) and do miss the technical challenge.  After all, machines and programs don't yell at us like other people do when we goof up! I will say, that even though I was not an intentional 'CC" I have enjoyed reading your discussions..

If you ever get it efficiently resolved let me know.  By the way, my first use of PC transfers to and from mainframe were @ 300 baud.  I had plenty of time to twiddle my fingers, work a crossword puzzle, think about dinner that evening, and still have time left over to read the newspaper.  :  And NO, I never did find the suitable 'math fonts' for which I was looking..  I printed the stuff out and used a pen to insert the math symbols that I wanted to use on the 'master'.

All my best to all of you ----.

 
(Helen) Christine Bloomquist
Coldspring, TX 77331  (abut 50 miles N of Houston)

Home: 936-653-4982
Cell: 281-797-4251
Fax: 509-463-1096  
 
 




________________________________
From: Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
To: Thomas Lord <lord@emf.net>
Cc: Håkon Wium Lie <howcome@opera.com>; Sylvain Galineau <sylvaing@microsoft.com>; "www-font@w3.org" <www-font@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2009 8:20:13 PM
Subject: Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Thomas Lord<lord@emf.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 01:25 +0200, Håkon Wium Lie wrote:
>> Also sprach Sylvain Galineau:
>>
>
>> The only thing I ask for from MS is that you also commit to support
>> TT/OT linking in IE, like you do in other products. This will require
>> an hour or so of your time.
>>
>> Will you do it?
>
>
> It sometimes appears that Håkon and I have
> deep differences so I want to say that I
> second him in that question.  It's a question
> of Microsoft's sense of social responsibility
> towards the standards process.

Sort of repeating what I said in my other email:

As an author, as long as raw TTF/OTF is *a* required format, I'm
*enormously* more flexible on what other formats may exist.  *One*
common format will at least put us at a good interop level, even if
many fonts aren't legally usable under it yet, and then we can have
all the knockdown-dragout fights we want over which new technology to
implement.

~TJ