RE: [css3-webfonts] Downloaded fonts should not...

Author A licenses the "Cool" font from a font vendor and is licensed to use the font in accordance with the EULA. This includes using the font with web content. Person A is not authorized to distribute the font, but can only use the font for their content.

Author B has a site and really likes the "Cool" font, but does not want to license the font. He makes his site use style="font-family: Cool, Next Best Font, serif;" hoping that people who have the "Cool" font will experience his site in a better look.

User 1 is an end user who doesn't know about the "Cool" font.

User 2 is an end user who loves the latest fonts and licensed the "Cool" font.


      | Author A        | Author B
User 1| Sees site with  | Sees site with
      | downloaded      | Next Best Font
      | "Cool" font     |

User 2| Sees site with  | Sees site with
      | local version   | local version
      | of "Cool" font  | of "Cool" font


By license agreement, User 1 cannot see Author B's site with the "Cool" font even if the font is cached on the machine because Author B is not licensed, nor claiming to be licensed, to use the "Cool" font for his web content.

If the font is available on the local machine, as the case of User 2, there is no reason to download the "Cool" font from Author A's site.


In the case that the font is a free font then the license issue is moot. Therefore, let's look at an image example.

If web page A has a picture called "mylogo.jpg" and web page B has a picture called "mylogo.jpg" would web page B use the image from web page A if the root is not the same? The images may be very different...or they may be the same. Do you take a chance, or download the image for each root?

Thoughts?

Paul


-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 2:26 AM
To: www-style@w3.org
Subject: Re: [css3-webfonts] Downloaded fonts should not...


On 15/04/2008, Patrick Garies <pgaries@fastmail.us> wrote:
>  Brad Kemper wrote:
>
> >  I would prefer if it could be downloaded once and then used from any
> >  page with an @font-face specifying the same font name, provided there
> >  could be some sort of quick check that it was the exact same font
> >  (digital signatures or something, perhaps).
>
>  I don't think that such a mechanism should be specified via CSS work. I
> really don't know how you'd specify such a thing anyway.

Right; if the "url(font.foo)" is the same and already cached, it
should be loaded from cache. If the URL is different but happens to
have the same name or filename, it should be downloaded.

Just like all other file formats.

Why do people think font files are so special? :-)

--
Regards,
Dave

Received on Tuesday, 15 April 2008 21:23:06 UTC