RE: A way forward

> From: Thomas Lord [mailto:lord@emf.net]
> Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 3:47 PM


> Indeed, it does not follow but we can still
> explore my suggestion, as you go on to do:

What matters is that those who object agree with your framing,
not me.

> It matters this way: it *might* be the case that
> restricted license fonts would mainly be licensed
> mainly for a form of use that relies on misfeatures
> (or bugs) of older versions of IE.  People on the
> "other side" could not in good conscience sign for
> a Recommendation that immortalized those bugs.  As
> a practical matter, the other browser implementers
> don't want to be put in a position of having to
> implement those bugs as a practical matter, even if they
> are not officially a Recommendation.  Håkon, et al.
> are not evading your questions at all - they are
> responding by voicing that concern.   <snip>

I don't buy it. I asked for specific examples and am being
fed parser issues that are completely orthogonal to the underlying
file format being used.

Second, Hakon never mentioned anything about font licenses
relying on specific IE quirks. He claimed supporting EOT-Lite
would force him to match those quirks because users would demand
it, not font licenses. That is imo untrue and in the absence of
said licenses, completely speculative anyway. As such, this concern
does not entitle one to dismiss the proposal so summarily.

Third, ZOT licenses could also implicitly or explicitly
demand such 'misfeatures'. (Love the word, btw) So if this really
were Hakon's concern I would expect it to be a general one about
font vendors licensing policies, not one limited to EOT-Lite.

> It's not fair to overburden MSFT in this and so I
> don't want to say MSFT is *obligated* to do the following
> but if MSFT were to do the following, it might help:
> work up some Firefox patches (or Opera or whatever) and
> demonstrate the reasonable proposed Recommendation.
> To be clear, I don't think it is in any way incumbent
> upon MSFT to do so - only that it *might* be something
> MSFT doesn't mind doing and that doing it can
> certainly help the process along.

Would it ?

> His suspicions appear from my perspective to be based
> on repeated experience in other areas of browser
> behavior.  He is asking, I think, why should I expect
> fonts to go any differently?

Yes. Past history is conveniently being called upon for the purpose
of justifying a confused and largely indefensible claim. Its
only apparent aim is to provide cover to say no EOT now that
his previous objections have been addressed. This was, unfortunately,
not unexpected. That doesn't make it OK though.

The burden remains on Hakon to articulate why he would be forced
to implement any IE quirks, and demonstrate a convincing example.
He keeps bringing up cases that simply do not add up. All the while
suggesting we go ahead and support TTF/OTF without showing the
slightest concern for the exact same issues, which would persist !

That is simply incoherent.

> The main motive for EOT-lite from the other side
> is the potential for downward compat. with existing
> versions of IE.  If that compatibility is tainted by
> quirks, the motive is gone and Håkon is right.

*What* quirks ? And since none of the quirks Hakon brings up
are in any way specific to EOT-Lite, why would they only be a concern
for this proposal and not the others ?

> This dialog is not chopped liver, so to speak.

I expect a fair hearing from the stakeholders, Thomas. If I have
every reason to believe I am not getting one, I will call it as such.

Received on Friday, 24 July 2009 23:29:43 UTC