RE: New work on fonts at W3C

On June 18, 2009 10:52 AM Brad Kemper wrote:

 

From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Brad Kemper
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:52 AM
To: John Daggett
Cc: www-style@w3.org
Subject: Re: New work on fonts at W3C

 

 

On Jun 16, 2009, at 4:41 PM, John Daggett wrote:





You don't need a new format to do these two things, you can do this by
tweaking the contents of the name table in TrueType/OpenType fonts:

1) Make the family name "No Tresspassing" and the style name " for web
use only" in for all web fonts.  Better yet, put in a GUID string based
on the purchaser/site.

2) Change the contents of the license record to say "This font licensed
to xxx by yyy for use on site zzz.  All other use restricted and
governed by the terms below.  For more information on this excellent
font please visit www.example.com/fantasticfont."

3) Include a sample @font-face definition in a text file that defines
the set of font faces and their associated style attributes (i.e. not
the obfuscated style names above).

That seems to satisfy your requirements; "normal" use in desktop
applications will not be possible and the font data will be clearly
marked as being associated with a given site in the license metadata.



 

These sound like really great ideas. I wonder if one of the fields (such
as the license record) could contain a machine-readable list of sites
that the font was licensed for, and if that list could be used for CORS
(for an HTTP server serving the font to read and include in the header,
or for the browser to read directly as though it was a header).

 

 

I am just curious - what the difference would be between "if one of the
fields (such as license record) could contain a machine-readable list of
sites that the font was licensed for, and if that list could be used for
CORS ... or for the browser to read directly as though it was a header"
and the root string in EOT format that contains "a list of URLs from
which the embedded font object may be referenced"?

 

It does sound like a great idea, doesn't it?