RE: Fonts WG Charter feedback

Also sprach Chris Wilson:

 > > - it seems wasteful to require everyone to convert legitimate TTF/OTF
 > >   files to a new format for web use
 > 
 > Why?

Take, for example, the free Larabie TTF fonts. Their license [1]
states that:

  You can add this font to a website but do not combine fonts into a
  single archive or alter them in any way.

So, one can publish these in their native TTF form, but one cannot
convert them to some other format. Therefore, by refusing to support
TTF/OTF linking in IE you also limit the availability of fonts that
can be legitimately used.

[1] http://www.princexml.com/fonts/larabie2/read_me.html

 > > - you support this in other applications
 > 
 > I presume by "applications" you mean platforms, and by platforms
 > you primarily mean Silverlight? If there were another web font
 > format that clearly carried licensing information, I expect
 > Silverlight would add support for it, and guide people to it, since
 > they have the commercial font problem today (and just chose not to
 > start a new font format effort at the time). They see it as a
 > problem too.

Not enough of a problem to remove support, apparently.

 > >I always treat you with respect, Chris. I not given due credit for
 > >devoting my life to improving Internet Explorer, though :-)
 > 
 > Hmm. I could draw a number of analogies here that would probably be
 > insulting and unfair. I understand that you want the web to be a
 > better place, Håkon; that does not mean I approve of your methods,
 > or that I believe you're as effective as you could be at that goal.

I'd be happy to patch your code directly, if given access :)

 > PS Tomorrow is a holiday in the US; it's also the beginning of a
 > weeklong vacation for me. I'll be less vocal during the next week.
 > Appreciated, I'm sure. :)

Enjoy!

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

Received on Friday, 3 July 2009 08:54:53 UTC