Re: New work on fonts at W3C

On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Aryeh Gregor
<Simetrical+w3c@gmail.com<Simetrical%2Bw3c@gmail.com>
> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Robert O'Callahan<robert@ocallahan.org>
> wrote:
> > This means fragmenting the EOT format into EOT-without-rootstrings,
> > EOT-without-compression, EOT-full, etc. In particular, if some browsers
> only
> > support EOT-without-rootstrings but font vendors require their fonts to
> have
> > rootstrings, nothing much has been gained except confusion (and perhaps
> an
> > opportunity has been lost).
>
> Why would font foundries be okay with Ascender's proposal, but not EOT
> minus RootString plus CORS?


I'm not making any claims about the preferences of font vendors.

I don't think that browsers implementing different subsets would be at
> all confusing.  Web authors have long been used to facts like "you can
> use PNG but not with alpha channels, because IE6 doesn't support them"
> or "you can use CSS rule X but not Y, because browser Z doesn't
> support it".  It's not a big deal IMO as a web developer.  What you do
> is just forget about everything you can't use.
>

In CSS you can generally get graceful degredation; whatever parts of CSS are
understood by the browser will be used. Even so, it's a pain. It's
definitely confusing, it's just something that Web developers have learned
to live with. We try to reduce that burden, not add to it.

Anyway, your proposed EOT fragmentation is not comparable in practice. Since
IE doesn't impose same-origin restrictions on EOT fonts, font vendors would
probably insist on root strings in their fonts, so what's the point of
supporting EOT-without-rootstrings?

Rob
-- 
"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his
own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah
53:5-6]