Re: Fonts WG Charter feedback

On Mon, 2009-07-06 at 08:03 -0700, Thomas Phinney wrote:

> It's not just talk: font vendors are in pretty unanimous and
> oft-publicly-stated agreement that piracy is the main motivator for
> their distaste for desktop fonts on web servers.

> For you to claim that something else is the case is to say that they
> are lying, plain and simple. You can dress that up however you like.

I have made no claims whatsoever regarding
any supposed "distaste for desktop fonts on 
web servers" among "font vendors".

You accused me of accusing certain font vendors of 
lying. I asked exactly what lie I supposedly accused them
of making.

Your answer is apparently that I accused them 
of lying about the motivations for "their distaste
for desktop fonts on web servers".

I did not assert they had any such distaste (rather
presumed the opposite, had you read).  Therefore
I could not have accused them of such a lie.

Will you persist in defaming me?

I do understand that font vendors object to licensing
their own restricted-license fonts for use on the web
in TTF/OTF format.  If my understanding is incorrect
then surely we can quickly standardize on TTF/OTF
alone and be done with it.

I also understand that the font vendors object to
licensing their fonts for the web in TTF/OTF format
because they perceive that that would lead to rampant,
unauthorized use of those fonts.  If my understanding
is incorrect, surely you can point out why.

I interpolate, reasonably I think, that such unauthorized
use would be objectionable to these vendors because it 
would lower the use value of renting a font from them.
If that is not the main concern, let me know.

I have pointed out that none of the above stated 
concerns of the font vendors answers the question of
why a standard could not have TTF/OTF alongside some
additional format, with the understanding that their fonts
will be licensed for web use only in this additional web
format.   So far I have heard simply that "Microsoft won't
do it" and that Chris Wilson considers the idea "irresponsible"
but those don't really provide any rationale.  

So we are left guessing as to rationale.   To form an 
intelligent guess we look at the consequences of such 
exclusion and the main consequence appears to be one of
excluding competition both in ways I've previously described
and in ways that Håkon previously described.


-t

Received on Monday, 6 July 2009 17:30:30 UTC