RE: Fonts WG Charter feedback

>-----Original Message-----
>From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On Behalf


>
>Also sprach karsten luecke:
>
> > >  - fundamentally, open standards don't benefit the dominant players
>in
> > >    a market as they lower the barrier for competition (this is true
> > >    for all markets, not just software)
> >
> > EOT *is* an open (documented) standard.
>
>My comments were are about TTF/OTF, not EOT.
>
>For most of its lifetime, EOT has been a secret format. Documentation
>is now available, but that doesn't automatically make it an "open
>standard", at least not per "Microsoft's definition" [1]:
>
>  Let's look at what an open standard means: 'open' refers to it
>  being royalty-free, while 'standard' means a technology approved by
>  formalised committees that are open to participation by all
>  interested parties and operate on a consensus basis. An open
>  standard is publicly available, and developed, approved and
>  maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process.
>
>  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standards
>
Well, if Wikipedia links to a quote in an article then it must be authoritative ! :)

Given that no 'formalized committee open to participation by interested parties' has defined raw TTF linking as the
standard for web fonts, I'm not sure how this definition is helpful either way. CSS3 Fonts lists a number of formats
'likely to be used by implementations on various platforms' and EOT is one of them. Probably because EOT is so widely
deployed as to be a de-facto standard. Should web typography take off, it is extremely likely that most fonts will
be downloaded in that encoding for some time to come by mere virtue of market share. Regardless of 'Microsoft's definition'
or your own personal preferences.

In fact, this outcome is even more likely now that anyone can write tools to encode fonts to EOT using the free documentation that
has been provided and the willingness of IP owners to give up their patent claims.

Now that all the information is available to judge EOT on its merits - or lack thereof - I don't see how constantly harping on
old historical grievances and splitting semantic hair through Wikipedia will help us move forward and agree on a proper long-term solution.

It was secret, Hakon. It no longer is. Let's move on.

Received on Sunday, 5 July 2009 20:34:11 UTC