RE: Fonts WG Charter feedback

Indeed.

From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Robert O'Callahan
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 3:38 PM
To: Ian Hickson
Cc: Håkon Wium Lie; Sylvain Galineau; www-font@w3.org
Subject: Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 9:18 AM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch<mailto:ian@hixie.ch>> wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jul 2009, Håkon Wium Lie wrote:
> Given commitment from MS to do TT/OT, I can live with this proposal:
>
>   http://blog.fontembedding.com/post/2009/06/10/New-Web-Fonts-Proposal.aspx

Wouldn't operating systems just build support in for these fonts, making
the entire exercise pointless? I mean, I assume FreeType would support
these fonts natively almost immediately, and I see no reason to suspect
that Apple wouldn't add support for this new format to Mac OS X too, since
it would aid developers significantly if they could see these fonts in
other applications once they've acquired them.

Let's be perfectly blunt. If this proposal were adopted then the issue of whether these Web fonts can be trivially used on desktops is no longer our problem, it moves to the OS vendors. That's a big win for browsers and for the Web. Foundries will probably find Apple and Microsoft desktop OS groups easier to deal with than us. I assume they don't care much about what happens on free desktops.

To be even more blunt, if we adopt this proposal and a lot fonts are licensed for it, then it doesn't matter if later the obfuscation becomes completely ineffective. The cat will be out of the bag.

Rob
--
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah 53:5-6]