Re: css3-fonts: should not dictate usage policy with respect to origin

I was not aware of, and therefore no party to drafting the description of
deliverables, and, if I had, I certainly would have objected at that time to
the inclusion of same origin related requirements in such a conformance
specification; however, having said that, I would not object to inclusion of
such requirements in a third or other specification that mandates certain
usage rules on certain (but not all) implementations of the two WOFF and
CSS3-FONTS specs, provided that it does not prevent the possibility of
defining a UA that normatively and conformantly uses WOFF and CSS3-FONTS
when same origin rules are not applied.

There appear to be a number of options the group(s) may consider:

   - leave WOFF and CSS3-FONTS as is with respect to same-origin
   requirements, and fail to resolve a formal objection from Samsung, leaving
   it to W3C management to (eventually) determine a conclusion;
   - move same-origin requirements from WOFF and CSS3-FONTS to a third
   "WebFonts Conformance Specification";
   - move same-origin requirements from WOFF and CSS3-FONTS to HTML5 or
   another definition of a UA that actually performs access functions;
   - remove same-origin requirements from WOFF and CSS3-FONTS, and leave in
   their place a recommendation that UA specifications or other specifications
   that perform access functions using WOFF and/or CSS3-FONTS consider and
   resolve access issues in the context of those other specifications; one way
   of doing this would be to adopt the alternative text I provided in an
   earlier message "If a user agent that makes normative use of this
   specification includes a same-origin policy, then that policy, and the
   mechanisms it uses to enforce that policy should apply to the loading of
   fonts via the @font-face mechanism.";
   - simply remove the same-origin requirements and take no further action;

If any of these last four resolutions are adopted, then I will consider the
matter resolved and vacate Samsung's formal objection; otherwise, I will
request that the existence of a formal objection be added to and remain in
the current editor's drafts and subsequent WDs of these two specs. In any
case, until the respective WGs have resolved this matter, it may be worth
noting the formal objection in the next revisions of editor's drafts. In
this regard, I would offer the following text to insert into the Editor's
Drafts of WOFF and CSS3-FONTS, sections 2 and 4.8, or, alternatively, into
the status section of these documents:

<quote>

A formal objection is open against this document:

   - Issue # (should not dictate usage policy with respect to origin)

</quote>

I presume an Issue # will be opened for the comments in this thread that can
be used in the above text.

Regards,
Glenn

On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 8:55 PM, John Hudson <tiro@tiro.com> wrote:

> Glenn Adams wrote:
>
>     I understand this point. But in order for such a mechanism to be
>>    usable, it's implementation in the user agent has to be defined
>>    somewhere.
>>
>
>  I do not disagree with this point. I disagree on where WOFF and CSS3-FONTS
>> has decided to define it. It should not be defined in WOFF or CSS3-FONTS; it
>> may be (but need not be) defined in a UA definition.
>>
>
> The Webfonts working group chartered deliverables include, in addition to
> the WOFF spec, a
>
>        WebFont conformance specification
>        This specification will reference the font formats
>        in existing use (OpenType, WOFF, SVG, and EOT), the
>        font referencing and linking specifications (in both
>        CSS and XML serialisations), access policies such
>        as same-origin and CORS, and define which linking
>        mechanisms, policies and formats are required for
>        compliance. WOFF will be the required format for
>        compliance, the others being optional. The Working
>        Group will decide whether to make the formats and
>        linking mechanisms normative references or, on the
>        other hand, produce a document citable by other
>        specifications (CSS3 Fonts, XSL, SVG) when claiming
>        conformance.
>
> Am I correct in understanding your objection that the same origin
> mechanisms applicable to web fonts (whether SOR/CORS as currently specified
> or the From-Origin header as proposed by Anne) should be properly spec'd in
> the Webfont conformance specification rather than in the WOFF or CSS specs?
>
> JH
>