[HarfBuzz] MS unilateral authority on OT? was: Myanmar OpenType Specification by Microsoft

[Adam Twardoch (List)]

On 13-01-07 13:39, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
> I have always wondered whether MS makes decisions re changes to OT
> specs unilaterally (or just by consulting some people at Adobe) or
> whether they they actually discuss this on publicly accessible mailing
> lists beforehand or at least consult OSS implementors of OT like
> Behdad, Jonathan Kew etc?
>
> I hope it's not as if they alone make the decision and the OSS world
> has to follow suite because due to the fragmentation in open-source OT
> engines (which HB-NG is intended to resolve) these have no voice...
>
> I see Behdad raising Unicode-property related issues on the Unicore
> list, but of course he's present there courtesy Google IIUC, but I'm
> not sure if he is consulted by MS before these changes are made.

Most of the OpenType format is technically equivalent to the
international standard ISO/IEC 14496-22:2009 (called Open Font Format or
OFF). It is a similar situation to most of Unicode being technically
equivalent to the international standard ISO/IEC 10646:2012.

Certain portions of OpenType (specifically, the complex-script shaping
algorithms) are not part of the OFF. They are developed and maintained
by Microsoft. Other portions of OpenType are developed in-sync with
Apple as they stem from the TrueType format.

There are two publicly-accessible discussion lists
(opentype-migration-list at indx.co.uk and
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mpeg-OTspec/ ), on which practically
all proposals for changes or extensions of the OpenType format are
discussed. Behdad is at least on one of these lists, as are
representatives from software vendors such as Microsoft, Adobe, Apple
and from numerous font vendors. Anyone is free to join the lists, post
proposals or suggestions. The atmosphere on the lists is very friendly,
people's contributions are being heard and treated seriously regardless
of whether one is a representative of a large company, or just an
interested individual.

(For example, I joined the OpenType discussion list when I was still a
student at university, and my suggestions were taken into account on
numerous occasions, even then.)

The entire process is very "participatory". Formal decisions and changes
are being developed and voted in the appropriate ISO committee
responsible for the ISO/IEC 14496-22 standard. Of course writing
high-quality language of the ISO standard is not an easy job, so most of
the hard work is being done by representatives of the largest companies.

As I've written above, there is one aspect of OpenType which is
not-so-much part of that process, and that's the shaping algorithms for
complex scripts. They're not part of the ISO standard and their initial
versions are being published by Microsoft as separate specs, quite
"unilaterally". This has to do mostly with the fact that the support for
additional writing systems is usually researched and implemented at
Microsoft internally, typically before a major Windows release, along
with a corresponding font or fonts. Then, some time after that Windows
version gets published, Microsoft turns the implementation of the
OpenType Layout shaping for a given writing system into a spec and
publishes that. Then, improvements from the community flow into the
future revisions of those specs.

Regards,
Adam

-- 

May success attend your efforts,
-- Adam Twardoch
(Remove "list." from e-mail address to contact me directly.)