Re: [css-color] vendor named color enhancement

On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 9:31 AM, Alex Cohen <AlexCohen@xrite.com> wrote:
> It’s great to see so much interest. We love where the color module level 4 is going and think it will bring color to a whole new level on the web.
>
> As a quick note, what I’m about to say is not a promise in any way, shape or form that Pantone will change it’s ways or that it will change it’s product structure, this is just a discussion, for now.
>
> I’d like to address Pantone IP. Pantone has been, to say it lightly, a bully regarding it’s IP. Some consider it non-sensical, other consider it to be the basis of their business model. I consider it to be a bit of both. There is a growing feeling that Pantone needs to loosen their grip.
>
> To me, Pantone is a nomenclature for color ( just like everyone knows what green looks like, a lot of people know what PANTONE 101 C looks like - it’s a yellow ). It is also a business that sells the information on how to reproduce that color. The separation of the two is very important.
>
> We need more than nomenclature to render a color on the web, which is why Pantone might be willing to loosen it’s Terms of use regarding the sRGB data for it’s colors. This is a discussion that we would need to have, but it’s looking good. I think sRGB will do the trick as a first step. We don’t want or expect perfect reproduction on the web, we just want a good approximation.
>
> The real goal is to specify the color using the names, which in a sense, means so much more than the data.
>
> Tab, If Pantone is something the W3C is interested in, I can definitely help out, I want to help out. Anything I can do, I will do.

Yes, we've definitely discussed including Pantone in the past, but
were unable to do anything due to the restrictive licensing. If you
can help with that, Chris Lilley and I would love to discuss further
with you.

Ideally we'd be able to get more than just sRGB, as that's a pretty
restrictive gamut. No reason not to get a proper description of the
color in CIELab if we can!

~TJ

Received on Monday, 25 July 2016 23:53:28 UTC