RE: Fonts WG Charter feedback

Well, if the community has in fact reached the point where it is willing to embrace proprietary solutions - from TypeKit or others - for all their commercial font access then does it even matter what Microsoft does or doesn't do ?  Font vendors are even less likely to license their fonts directly as raw files if TypeKit can handle all this across all browsers for them. And free fonts can still easily be served up as EOT for IE users.

Should this in fact work and other players emerge - or font vendors deploy their own TypeKit-like solutions - I'm not sure authors will like including and running extra Javascript libraries in their apps vs. letting the platform deal with a simple common format. So I don't think we'll avoid agreeing on a common standard. It's only a question of when.

From: Jason CranfordTeague [mailto:jason@brighteyemedia.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 7:15 AM
To: www-font@w3.org
Cc: Chris Wilson; Sylvain Galineau; Håkon Wium Lie
Subject: Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback

I would like to point out that Chris (and by extension Microsoft) has always taken the stance that MS will under no circumstances support TT/OT linking in IE.  This has been the definitive case at least since 2007 when I posed the question "Will you do it?" to him at the CSS WG face to face in Boston (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishida/2047808967/).

It is obvious that Microsoft will not budge on this vital issue, so we are at the same impasse we have been at for over 10 years.

It is also obvious that, at the very best, the Fonts work group was not created to find the best solution for the Web community, but to find a solution that will appease Microsoft. At that same meeting in Boston in 2007, Microsoft proposed this group (or one like it) when they realized that they were not getting anywhere with the CSS WG. At that meeting, many questioned whether the CSS WG  should be in the business of endorsing formats, especially EOT, which Microsoft had only just made public. Interesting coincidence: Webkit had just started supporting OT/TT at about the same time EOT became public.

However, it is likely that events will soon overtake this group, rendering it moot. If Jeffery Veens Typekit works anything like it is reported to, then I have little doubt that this solution will be embraced. I do not like having to rely on third party functionality for something that should be an easy to implement standard, but the Web design community is tired of waiting.

Delaying things with another Work Group isn't going to help, and, in my opinion, just muddies already opaque waters.

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Jason Cranford Teague
Internet Design & Strategy
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On 2 Jul 2009, at 7:44 AM, Håkon Wium Lie wrote:


Chris Wilson wrote:


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?

No.

To make sure we understand the implications of your dismissal: are you
speaking on behalf of Microsoft in this matter?

-h&kon
             Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome