Re: Questions re web-fonts

Christopher Fynn wrote:

> In OTF don't we more or less already have a single, extensible, flexible 
> font format? We can add fine grained permission bits, additional 
> licensing information and custom tables, etc., etc. to that format while 
> remaining compatible with existing implementations.

Yes, we can extend the fontdata format with permissions, tailored 
licensing, custom tables etc., but in the meantime these 'existing 
implementations' are exposing all existing TTF and OTF font files to 
free filesharing, and most of those fonts do not contain any specific 
licensing information for web use or, even, embedding bit settings that 
are recognised as meaningful for naked TTF/OTF linking.

The objection of many font makers and owners is precisely that these 
fonts should not be exposed in this way through these 'existing 
implementations', that these implementations are both ethically and 
technically wrong.

The sad thing is that we might end up with EOT or some derivative as a 
standard format simply because we're being pushed to a quick solution 
instead of the right solution.

John Hudson

Received on Wednesday, 15 July 2009 15:40:23 UTC