[OpenFontLibrary] Firefox 3.5 showing off @font-face prominently

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le mercredi 17 juin 2009 à 19:56 +0100, Dave Crossland a écrit :
> 2009/6/17 Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net>:
> > Le mercredi 17 juin 2009 à 19:19 +0100, Dave Crossland a écrit :
> >
> >> > I'm not impressed but then I'm about the only person on this list who
> >> > never believed in @font-face world-saving powers in the first place.
> >>
> >> What would you have instead? :-)
> >
> > Browser people:
> > 1. promoting a good complement of libre fonts so more are installed by
> > default
> 
> Unless you got MS to preinstall them, most users wouldn't have them though?

So?
Do you really think @font-face will make it any better?

The cynical part of me says:

Scenario A. Commercial web site:
1. design departments will still swear by whatever expensive fonts Adobe
puts in its products
2. since no foundry is ever going to allow such a font to be shared via
non-drmed @font-face, they'll pass on @font-face and specify arial
3. technicians will put Arial in the css
4. If people complain arial is not available on their system, they'll
link an arial ttf file since their understanding is it's "free"

Scenario B. Hobbyist web site:
1. will fell in love with @font-face (just like when "marble"
backgrounds, gif dingbats and blinking tags were the new fad)
2. will download some hideous dubiously licensed ascii-only font on
dafont, and link it
3. 8 months later, when enough people have complained it was a terrible
idea, will put back arial everywhere

Scenario C. I18n web site:
1. will try to locate i18n fonts for its i18n users
2. will forget about them afterwards
3. 3 years later, everyone visiting the non-English pages will still get
force fed old buggy fonts even if better replacements have long been
available (this is what happens in apps that do not use fontconfig and
bundle their own fonts. I've audited enough of them this year to know it
by now)

Where is the goodness in there?

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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