RE: The unmentionable

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Dirk Pranke <dpranke@google.com>:

>Conversely, there are certainly people that will point out that this
>does not provide any value at all for legitimate users, only hurdles
>that they have to jump over.

Dirk,

I want to be able to keep my nose clean legally without a whole hell of a lot of thought. (Don't get me started on the subject of EULAs. I'll go berserk.) Using a different file extension seems to me a reasonable precaution, a "safety latch" of sorts that helps keep me and any clients I work for, out of trouble.
Font IP does exist. It is a concern. Hopefully, all the makers of user agents can come together and agree on this insofar as it sets a very low level of inconvenience, if any at all. If some want to call it a "hurdle" so be it. Security features present "hurdles" also, but still we seek to protect users even though some inconvenience may be entailed.
In this particular case I think there is wisdom in it.

Regards,

rich


-----Original Message-----
From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Dirk Pranke
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 1:33 PM
To: John Hudson
Cc: www-font@w3.org
Subject: Re: The unmentionable

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 7:53 AM, John Hudson<tiro@tiro.com> wrote:
> Dirk Pranke wrote:
>
>> Also, as an observation, it's not clear to me that the .webfont
>> proposal offers anything particularly compelling over embedding the
>> metadata directly into the OTF/TTF file, apart from the desktop
>> interop issue
>
> The desktop interop issue is a major one for many font makers. And
> it goes both ways: preventing casual piracy of 'downloadable fonts'
> and also preventing casual upload of desktop fonts not licensed for
> web use.
>
> By 'casual' I mean not requiring any conscious step between
> observing the license and breaking it.

I agree completely with your statement - it does appear to be a very
high priority requirement for font makers.

Conversely, there are certainly people that will point out that this
does not provide any value at all for legitimate users, only hurdles
that they have to jump over. I.e., why should browser vendors
implement features that make users' lives harder, when even the font
makers admit that this provides no real security or restrictions? Why
aren't we willing to trust users to do the right thing?

I'm not taking a side here, just pointing out both viewpoints. It is
not for me to say if the browser makers will be willing to compromise,
or if we will remain at an impasse.

-- Dirk

Received on Wednesday, 29 July 2009 19:08:08 UTC