Re: the discussion is over, resistance time

On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 17:52 -0700, Thomas Phinney wrote:
> 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.

How else could one possibly take it?


> 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, 

I'm sure it's likely that someone will if things
continue on their current course.


> significantly reducing the
> revenue type designers get from anyone except those big corporations
> that can't be seen participating in font piracy.

That is hardly what's at stake here.

-t



> 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 01:55:31 UTC