RE: Format name proposals

Friday, August 28, 2009 François REMY <fremycompany_pub@yahoo.fr>:

Francois, John, Bill,

This is my second and last post on this because at the end of the day, as
François cum Shakespeare would say: the implementation's the thing.
But the packaging on the box counts, too - it gives people a clue to what's
inside.
The idea that you fellows don't consider EOTL or *any* variation of EOT to
be a legacy format amazes me. Splitting hairs if you ask me.
The dictionary says of "legacy":

Noun: 'anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or
predecessor: the legacy of ancient Rome.' (Or Internet Explorer.)

Adjective: 'of or pertaining to old or outdated computer hardware, software,
or data that, while still functional, does not work well with up-to-date
systems.' (EOTL works, but is it compliant, today, with the spec for
@font-face? No.)

The word "legacy" popped into my head because I was looking for a word that
would:
1) Speak to the provenance of the format, it's origin, as being something
handed down from the past.
2) Label the format as something akin to "deprecated", with WOFF (or
whatever the name .webOTF morphs into) being the preferred format going
forward, as support for it grows and will allow.

That said, anything it ends up being is fine with me.
Now's the time to nail it down, though.
Thoughts from anyone else?

Regards,

rich

-----Original Message-----
From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of
François REMY
Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 6:44 PM
To: John Hudson; rfink@readableweb.com
Cc: 'Bill Davis'; www-font@w3.org
Subject: Re: Format name proposals

Compatibility Web Type fails because it's not correct grammatically and is 
difficult to say. I don't like it.
Compatible Web Type is correct grammatically, but it doens't have the same 
meaning, even if they're very close.
Same applies for Legacy Web Type. And, as you stated, EOTL is not a legacy 
format.

*Compatible* Web Font (CWF) sounds great for me. BTW, the name doesn't 
matter. Only the implementation does.


--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Hudson" <tiro@tiro.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 12:10 AM
To: <rfink@readableweb.com>
Cc: "'Bill Davis'" <info@ascenderfonts.com>; <www-font@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Format name proposals

> Richard Fink wrote:
>
>> CWT for “Compatible Web Type” sounds too flattering.
>
> Note that my proposal was for
>
> Compatibility Web Type
>
> not 'compatible'. The implication of the name is that this format exists 
> for compatibility purposes, in this case backwards compatibility.
>
>> How about LWT (if available) for “Legacy Web Type”.
>
> But it isn't a legacy format. The legacy format is EOT. This is a new 
> format that is compatible with software that used the legacy format. 
> Hence, I stick with my 'compatibility' suggestion.
>
> John Hudson
>

Received on Saturday, 29 August 2009 15:05:26 UTC