Re: css3-fonts: should not dictate usage policy with respect to origin

Glenn Adams wrote:

>    1. we don't believe that mandating same-origin rules in a UA w.r.t.
>       font loading will encourage more widespread availability or use of
>       webfonts; in contrast, we do believe that completing WOFF and
>       CSS3-FONTS and their rapid adoption by UA implementers in a
>       consistent, interoperable manner will encourage more widespread use;

I don't see these as being at all contradictory or even exclusive.

The Webfonts WG was chartered after a lengthy debate between UA makers 
(notably Opera, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla, with some input from 
Apple), commercial font providers, libre font providers/advocates, and 
some engaged users. The WOFF model -- a phrase I'll use to distinguish 
the philosophical and practical characteristics of WOFF rather than the 
file format per se -- was revised and refined by the inventors during 
this period to produce something that was acceptable to and mostly 
enthusiastically embraced by the participants in that debate. Crucially, 
it avoided any notion of DRM, while providing what was variously 
characterised as a 'garden fence' or 'bulkhead' in terms of some very 
minimal mechanisms to protect fonts from casual or ignorant unlicensed 
use (file format distinct from raw font, possibility of file/licensee 
specific meta data, same origin restriction). Together, this set of 
mechanisms constitute a large part of what encouraged a significant 
number of font developers to publicly support the WOFF model and to 
begin licensing fonts for use on the Web. Throughout the process of 
formally defining the WOFF file format and bringing it to the current 
point, the WG members have been mindful of the consensus arrived at 
among the participants of that earlier debate, the W3C has ensured that 
representatives of all the 'positions' of that debate are involved in 
the WG, and there has been a conscious effort to avoid undermining the 
basic elements of the WOFF model. This is why we voted to leave the 
current SOR text in the spec while marking it as 'at risk' while 
actively encouraging a better solution elsewhere (with most seeming to 
be in favour of Anne's from-origin proposal, which still needs to be 
formally drafted and to find a home within what I think you have 
correctly identified as 'proper specification layering.') What we are 
loath to do is to remove, without provision of an alternative, all 
mention of something that has been an intrinsic part of the WOFF model 
for so long, and on which at least part of the goodwill and enthusiasm 
the WOFF model and format has generated is based.

JH

Received on Saturday, 18 June 2011 23:21:54 UTC