[OpenFontLibrary] latest?

[Chris Lilley]

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 2:17:41 PM, Nicolas wrote:


NM> Le Mer 21 octobre 2009 14:08, Ben Weiner a écrit :

>> Hi,

>> Nicolas Spalinger wrote:
>>> I think we also seriously need to think about WOFF support in the
>>> library seeing the endorsement already expressed by many organizations:
>>> http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2009/10/20/mozilla-supports-web-open-font-format/

>> Absolutely agree. Let's get the new version live, and then take a fresh
>> look...

NM> Well, as the Mozilla article states plainly there are zero technical
NM> advantages to woff as compared to raw TTF/OTF as long as your apache is
NM> configured properly (with transparent compression, that any serious org has
NM> been doing for years).

That is incorrect. HTTP byterange can be used to get the WOFF header and decide which tables to selectively fetch. Thats a difference from gzip of the whole thing.

But yes, one of the major advantages of WOFF is political; for-fee foundries are apparently willing to license WOFF fonts for web use and TTF fonts for print use.

NM> Since the OFLB has no problems distributing raw TTF/OTF files and presumably
NM> is competent enough to use mod_deflate, I really do not see what would be the
NM> point of pretending WOFF is any better. Let the foundries promote the format
NM> they forced on the internet themselves.

Sigh.

The false "us and them" does not produce a workable solution.

And something does need to be done, since OFL forbids conversion to another format without a rename fork; which is a PITA for folks who want to reference a WOFF version of a free font.

NM> (I've really loved all the spin about woff that tried to imply woff was
NM> somehow necessary for web fonts, that systematically used libre fonts like
NM> gentium or mgopen as examples when they can already be used directly as plain
NM> font files with no degradation of user experience whatsoever).

They can be, if the user agent supports downloading of raw TTF/OTF files. Some do , some don't, and some have said they never will. But have not said that about WOFF.



-- 
 Chris Lilley                    mailto:chris at w3.org
 Technical Director, Interaction Domain
 W3C Graphics Activity Lead
 Co-Chair, W3C Hypertext CG