Re: Next step?

From: "Thomas Phinney" <tphinney@cal.berkeley.edu>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 8:37 PM, John Hudson<tiro@tiro.com> wrote:
>> We now have what seem to be two viable proposals for interoperable web 
>> font
>> formats agreeable to most if not all parties, and demonstration of test 
>> code
>> to produce and support both. How do we proceed from here?
>>
>> I have to admit that I rather like the idea of a 'Prove Richard Fink 
>> Wrong'
>> race to see how quickly the non-EOTL format can be implemented and 
>> shipped
>> in all major browsers. I kind of get the impression that Firefox could do 
>> it
>> within a week if they set themselves to it. IE8 patch anyone?
>>
>> All joking aside, how best do we proceed to getting one or both of these
>> proposals formalised, supported in browsers and into an W3C 
>> recommendation?
>
> I think there are two elements:
>
> 1) finishing formalizing the specs. Both EOTL and Web OTF are pretty
> close already.
>
> 2) determine what the actual recommendation is. Does it include all
> three of naked fonts, EOTL and WebOTF, or some subset? Does it say
> that if one supports any format, one must support all three? Is it
> silent on that issue? Or does it play favorites as to which format(s)
> are important?
>
> I believe the set of questions around (2) are the thorny ones. I
> expect that a recommendation saying that user agents supporting web
> fonts MUST support WebOTF, and MAY support naked fonts and/or EOTL
> would be the closest to a compromise that just maybe everyone involved
> could live with.

I much prefer something like that :
<<
    An User-Agent supporting web fonts SHOULD support WebOTF, EOTL
    and naked fonts.

    An User-Agent supporting web fonts MUST support at least two of the
    three specified formats.
>>

It makes sure no browser could continue with its current implementation
because everybody must implement at least one more format. Additionnaly,
it makes no discrimination about formats (why should naked fonts and EOTL
be considerated as of 'less interest' than WebOTF ?).

> Yes, I know that some folks want naked font support to be a MUST. But
> given that MS won't accept that, is the compromise above a reasonable
> alternative?

Any MUST about a specific format seems to be a problem. Using a SHOULD
for all formats makes it clear that every format has to be supported but it 
still
leaves some place of liberty, though.

> Regards,
>
> T
>

Received on Wednesday, 12 August 2009 13:52:57 UTC