RE: CSS3 @font-face / EOT Fonts - new compromise proposal

Also sprach Levantovsky, Vladimir:

 > > I think this view is shared by all; noone has asked for 
 > > TTF-linking to be banned. However, if obfuscated-TTFs are 
 > > supported by all browsers and inclear-TTFs are only supported 
 > > by a subset of browsers, obfusction is likely to be used for 
 > > all font files. This is not good.
 > 
 > I suspect that the same statement, made using different (and more
 > descriptive) words, would paint a different picture:
 > 
 > "If compressed fonts are supported by all browsers and uncompressed
 > fonts are only supported by a subset of browsers, compression is
 > likely to be used for all font files."
 > 
 > May I ask you - why "this is not good"? Is there a single use case
 > when reducing storage size for fonts, or lowering bandwidth
 > requirements, or making your web page load faster is not a benefit?

Compression is good -- my comment was about obfuscation and the need
for browsers to find common ways to support webfonts.

Wrt. compression, there are some questions:

 - do we need a font-specific compression scheme? As you have noted, a
   font-specific scheme can provide better compression ratio. However,
   JPEG 2000 can do better than JPEG, but we are still using JPEG on
   the web.

 - what are the legal implications of implementing a new compression
   scheme? I know that patent holders have said that they will accept
   RF licensing at the point when this becomes a W3C Recommendation.
   But W3C Recommendations are hard and time-consuming to make and
   generally require implementations to come before them. It would
   probably serve you case if you could offer RF licensing sooner
   rather than later.

Also, I think you derserve credit for coming up with a compromise
proposal that does not involve root strings.

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Monday, 10 November 2008 17:12:08 UTC