RE: Next step?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-font-request@w3.org [mailto:www-font-request@w3.org] On

 
 
> I'm still waiting for the reasoning that explains how any-2-of-4 acts
> like any kind of rudder.

You'll wait long. Just because I'm generally OK with it doesn't mean I think of it as a rudder.
It's simply the best suggestion to date, imo. Blessing some ideal mono-cultural future has 
no appeal to me because I have hundreds of millions of users now and don't have the luxury
of moving them forward at my preferred pace (although Windows 7 will help). Implementing
all these formats will not happen. So any intermediate formula that:
a) skirts all the usual dead-end controversies,
b) is in fact very likely, in practice, to result in one common cross-browser format,
c) acknowledges the existence and reality of the web as it is and will be for several more years by 
accepting and formalizing a simple compatible option. 

...well, that sounds way better than the alternatives. Especially when I remember the days when
'web fonts should be no different than images so raw font files is all there should be and too bad
for font vendors if they don't want to play'. We've come far enough that I think we should be able to
recognize a good, realistic, working compromise when we see one. And a single format is not it.

I think you assume a more open, less prescriptive requirement is more likely to yield a worse outcome than 
a very restricted and prescriptive one. I respectfully disagree. Maybe that is true for you. But I don't
think that's true for web authors. And if we don't satisfy them it won't matter to you for quite some time
either.

Received on Thursday, 22 October 2009 03:24:27 UTC