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

On Thursday, November 13, 2008 5:03 PM Mirko Gustony wrote:
> 
> Hello Vladimir,
> 
> I had no intent to attack font creators or vendors for doing 
> their jobs (creating, selling and protecting fonts).
> 

Hello Mirko,
No offense taken!

> Maybe choosing "text" as an example wasn't the best idea (for 
> many different reasons). But hey, at least I got your attention :)
> 

You sure did :)

> Piracy is a problem. From that point of view text is not 
> different from fonts or images or music (aside from the 
> amount of pirated works of art).
> 
> I just want to make sure the foundries keep in mind not to 
> make the same mistakes the record industry made. It did them 
> no good and it won't do the foundries either.
> 
> I fear attempting to solve legal problems by technical means 
> is a risky path. Chances are to annoy customers and visitors 
> of websites.
> 

Absolutely agree. This is why I would like to see:

- customers (web designers) being able to use any fonts they want to
design a content. Once the content is done, they will have necessary
tools to publish it. The tools could be something as simple (and not
very convenient) as WEFT today, or a part of the content management
system where any change in content design (including different choice of
fonts) is published with a simple push of a button.

- visitors of websites viewing content as it was intended with all font
choices designers made. IF a font is linked from an "unauthorized
source" UA would simply ignore it and use whatever substitute local font
is available. I don't want to annoy visitors by any warnings or pop-ups
- the warning about alleged misuse of a linked font has no meaning to
them and will only irritate people (or just make them click "don't show
this ever again" checkbox).

- font data (located on the web severs and transmitted over the internet
to UAs) be obfuscated so that it can not be dropped into the OS font
folder and used "as is". Dave Singer's "garden gate" analogy is the best
way to describe this - enough said.

When this solution is in place, it won't matter what fonts are chosen -
they will just work - on the web, in email, IM clients, etc. All other
functions will also work, e.g. if I want to save web site content for
offline use (I do it quite often when I travel), it will be saved with
all necessary resources intact (HTML/CSS/images/fonts/...) for my local
viewing.

Best regards,
Vlad

> 
> Regards,
> Mirko Gustony
>

Received on Saturday, 15 November 2008 19:57:33 UTC