Re: the discussion is over, resistance time

Of course, if you want to take Microsoft's disinterest in supporting
naked TTF/OTF fonts on web servers as a declaration of war, that is
your perogative.

But gosh, if you're going to do that, perhaps somebody else should
form an similarly-named committee that aims to protect the noble and
oppressed type designers from nasty people who want to force all
browsers to work with easily pirated fonts, significantly reducing the
revenue type designers get from anyone except those big corporations
that can't be seen participating in font piracy.

Cheers,

T

On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Thomas Lord<lord@emf.net> wrote:
> The discussion is heated to the point of a
> melt-down.  Let those of us who care about
> the web step back and take a look at the
> bigger picture.
>
> Chris Wilson of Microsoft has stated an
> apparently authoritative Microsoft position
> on this matter.  He says that no proposal
> is acceptable to Microsoft which includes a
> requirement of supporting raw TT and OT
> linking.
>
> This is significant because TT and OT are
> very widely supported and so they are the most
> natural formats to support.
>
> Offers have been made to require TT and OT
> along with some third format, whether Ascender's
> or my wrapper.  Microsoft has said "no" even
> though these counter proposals satisfy all
> stated concerns of the font vendors representing
> themselves here.
>
> It would be a simple matter for any third party
> to publicly offer a patch to IE to support
> OT and TT except that IE has a restricted
> license that forbids that kind of thing.
>
> In that way, Microsoft is claiming power over
> its users and here leveraging that power
> to, pardon me but, f- with the serious work
> of an international standards organization.
> I don't think it is too much of an exaggeration
> to say that Microsoft is attempting to treat
> IE users as a form of hostages who act as
> a bargaining chip.
>
> So, Microsoft has said "no," we are given
> to understand.  In that case...
>
> We owe it to the users of IE not to leave them
> at the mercy of such bad, anti-competitive
> behavior from Microsoft.
>
> Instead, we should use this opportunity to encourage
> those users to switch away from IE.
>
> I propose the formation of a political resistance
> committee: the Committee for Web Font Sanity.
> I invite the CC list to help form the committee
> or others who might have something to contribute.
> I invite the larger community to participate and
> help to support the committee's work.
>
> The Web Font Sanity committee will, if formed,
> and if joined by supporters, attempt to encourage
> multiple, highly popular web services to begin to
> make significant use of TT and OT web fonts in ways
> that users really appreciate yet can't experience
> when using IE.  We can target blog hosts and bloggers,
> social networking sites, news sites, and so forth.
> We can ask those sites include statements about
> why IE is not preferred for viewing those sites.
>
> Simultaneously we can begin an educational campaign
> to inform the public of Microsoft's intransigence on
> this issue and the impact of it on the "user experience".
>
> Above all, in combination with that message, we can
> begin to instruct the IE-using public on how easily
> they can migrate to a free software browser and how
> that can benefit their web experience.
>
> A committee can begin to draw press attention to the
> issue, in various ways.
>
> The users of IE are, in my opinion, effectively being
> held hostage in an extortion attempt by Microsoft,
> at least if we understand Chris Wilson's statements
> to be definitive.
>
> Just as an honorable passer by would not leave a man
> trapped under a burning car if there was any choice
> on the matter, we owe it to those IE users to free them.
>
> -t
>
> p.s.: credit where credit is due:
>
> Håkon suggested that W3C itself should start using TT
> and/or OT fonts on w3c.org and that was where I got
> the inspiration.  I'm just extending that idea.
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
- Sir Winston Churchill

Received on Thursday, 2 July 2009 00:53:14 UTC