Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Thomas Phinney<tphinney@cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:
> You could replace "browser implementers" with "font owners" and the
> statement would be equally true.

Well, first of all, that depends on whether your goal is to get an
interoperable font format per se, or to encourage proliferation of
commercial fonts on the web.  I'm sure everyone here is in favor of
the first goal, and it will be achieved precisely if browser
implementers agree.  I don't think everyone here cares very much about
the second.  Moreover, even for those who do, it's hard to judge
anything based on font owners' attitudes, because

1) There are vastly more font owners than browser vendors, and not
many have representatives here.  IE and Firefox are pragmatically
enough to decide a standard format by themselves if necessary, and we
have active participants here from both of them.  Their requirements
are fairly clear, and reasonably amenable to clarification if not.
Even if we wanted to satisfy font foundries, it would be hard to
figure out what they want.

2) There's much more competition in the font market with respect to
this issue.  Font buyers will demand fonts that work in whatever
format will work on their website, so foundries will be forced to go
along with whatever common format is agreed upon no matter what, at
least to some extent.  Otherwise they'll lose customers.  Nobody is
going to switch web browsers because of which font format they
support, so browser vendors are free to act as they please, and their
stated opinions are more important.

Received on Friday, 3 July 2009 21:41:53 UTC