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

As a *draft* specifications, css3-fonts and WOFF can certainly define new requirements for future implementations. Your entire argument would imply that once a draft has been implemented future versions of the spec must be compatible with those implementations. This is not the way CSS works; no implementation that implemented a given draft is guaranteed conformance with the next one. The main motive for vendor prefixes is to allow specifications to evolve without breaking implementations. That historical implementations did not prefix their @font-face implementation should not block us from achieving both interoperability and desirable runtime behavior in future implementations.


From: public-webfonts-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-webfonts-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Glenn Adams
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2011 12:59 PM
To: liam@w3.org
Cc: Levantovsky, Vladimir; StyleBeyondthePunchedCard; public-webfonts-wg@w3.org; www-font@w3.org; Martin J.
Subject: Re: css3-fonts: should not dictate usage policy with respect to origin

Samsung supports your suggestion below if it is expressed either as "should" or made conditionally mandatory, where the condition is expressed as follows or an equivalent:

"If the use of WOFF occurs in a context where same origin access constraints are *already* present/supported, then that mechanism *must* be used to limit access to WOFF fonts; otherwise, such a mechanism *should* be provided for such use."

We do not want the use of WOFF by itself, or css3-fonts, by itself, to trigger a mandatory requirement for same origin processing in contexts that don't already support such constraints. For example, in HTML4 or XHTML1 category UAs that already support @font-face or that wish to support WOFF.

We note that the @font-face rule has been defined in css3-fonts since 31 July 2001, and that a variety of UAs have been fielded in the non-desktop environment (e.g., mobile, television, etc), which employ @font-face for accessing other non-WOFF fonts, and do so without same origin restrictions. This would argue against introducing a non-backward compatible change in css3-fonts to mandate same origin processing for prior fielded implementations that do not otherwise support same origin. WOFF similarly should not by itself trigger mandatory support for same origin in such UAs.

G.
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org<mailto:liam@w3.org>> wrote:
The WOFF spec could say in its conformance section (right in the spec,
not in a separate document) that for use in style sheets (not only CSS)
an implementation-defined mechanism should (must?) be available to limit
access to the WOFF resource outside of support for the style sheets, and
maybe give same-origin as an example.