Re: FW: EOT-Lite File Format

2009/8/4 Thomas Phinney <tphinney@cal.berkeley.edu>:
> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:05 PM, John Hudson<tiro@tiro.com> wrote:
>> EOTC fonts should be completely ignored by all browsers except IE. It should
>> be obvious that this is actually in the interests of the EOTL format,
>> because if EOTC fonts are not interoperable with other browsers, this
>> encourages both font makers and authors to use EOTL instead. If, on the
>> other hand, non-IE browsers treat EOTC fonts as if they are EOTL, then such
>> fonts will stick around much longer, just waiting for someone to sue the
>> browser maker or the W3C for circumventing the rootstring mechanism in EOTC.
>
> I agree. If I were an open source and free software advocate, I would
> have zero interest in having my browser support EOTC.

Hang on. I just reread Tab and Tom Lord's posts on this, and it seems
to me they are saying there are 4 things that the W3C Recommendation
ought to be backwards compatible with, if backwards compatibility is
an important aim here:

1. Existing versions of MSIE

2. Existing EOTC-using websites

3. Existing versions of Firefox, Safari, and real soon Opera and Chrome

4. Existing TTF-using websites

We've heard assertions that 4 is small enough to trample on, and 3
will kill the type designers business because no one will buy font
licenses anymore if that happens, and that 1 is a very good idea.

I think Tom and Tab are saying that 2 is not small enough to trample
on, and just saying to such sites "tough, upgrade to EOTL" is not a
credible move for the W3C; especially since, as ROC points out, even
Ascender's own license requires things EOTL doesn't deliver.

If the W3C Rec is only backwards-compatible with MSIE and not other
browsers TTF web fonts features, and smashes up existing sites using
EOTC, it is not "Leading the Web to Its Full Potential" - it is
breaking existing sites that serve people who are AFAICT
underrepresented in our discussions, and most importantly the W3C is
now giving preferential treatment to a single vendor, Microsoft.

To give uniform fair treatment would be to Recommend browsers support
both existing web font formats, EOT and TTF, and allow browsers to run
the risk of breaking the DMCA-style laws and ignoring root strings but
still rendering files with root strings - if the W3C says the root
strings are padding or not doesn't effect that they are in the files
and are being ignored, and to ignore files with rootstrings will not
be backwards compatible with existing EOTC sites.

Tricky business!

Received on Tuesday, 4 August 2009 15:21:09 UTC