[MPEG-OTSPEC] Updates to specification

[Levantovsky, Vladimir]

On Thursday, August 13, 2020 4:32 PM Dave Crossland wrote:

It seems to me that having a central forum to propose Things without any guarantee of implementation, or of co-incorporation into the OFF and OT standards, is important.

It is not necessary for any particular implementor to have implemented, be implementing, promise or suggest a future effort to implement.

But it is vitally necessary for those implementers to have a window of opportunity to discuss, suggest, oppose, endorse, not oppose, those Things, so that if and when they do decide to implement, they have a clear path to follow.

Yet, this list hasn't been that central forum.

While the recent obscurity of this list can be fairly easily resolved, it seems to me that that email lists are not as effective as git repos with integrated issue trackers for collaboration on documents.

With my AHG chair hat on, in addition to what I mentioned earlier [about the importance of having an open forum that offers unrestricted access to any willing participant], what I didn’t mention is that establishing that forum isn’t strictly up to us – it is up to the ISO WG to establish the AHG and choose the provider who will be hosting that group’s email list. The list of established AHGs with the information about their approved mandates, email lists, and how to join them is published after every Working Group meeting – this is how the assurances are made that it is truly open for anyone interested to join.

Of the several places where discussions have arisen in the last few years, most of them are such Github repos:

(1) meta discussions about how to make font format spec updates - here, on Twitter.com, and TypeDrawers.com.

(2) editorial change ideas happening here and in
 https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/typography-issues/issues<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/VmbvCv2z58h71yOOFQgmMs> and
https://www.commontype.org<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/PMfICwpA5KsG6R00Tq7rH9> .

(3) technical change ideas happening here and in
https://github.com/opentype<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/CdTXCxkB52t18QmmcYvk1f> ,
https://github.com/commontype-standard<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4rJXCzpE57sMDm88coX7VM> ,
https://github.com/be5invis/OTVAR-ZVAR-Table<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/ufbOCAD2oMhN01rrfMRPzk> ,
https://github.com/microsoft/OpenTypeDesignVariationAxisTags<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/rd74CBB2pPc7qlPPFvWYNB> ,
https://github.com/googlefonts/colr-gradients-spec<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Uo4fCDk2rQt5pOjjsBHZ69> and
https://github.com/microsoft/OpenType-XVAR-proposal<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/9w0SCER2v0u3y611syvUj4> .

(4) efforts to consolidate the 'script development specs' such as
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/script-development/bengali<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/i4URCG62xMh1nLWWcWfVMB> from MS,
https://github.com/n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents/<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/wVhBCJ62ANhqOQppTnLA4s/> from Nathan Willis,
https://github.com/typotheque/text-shaping<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/IdlGCKr2BLh2Kr88frAEaB> from Liang Hai, and related tools like
https://bitbucket.org/LindenbergSW/fontdoctools/src/master/R%C3%B6ntgen.md<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/ycScCM82gJsqP6xxT3qWI-> from Norbert Lindenberg.

So, to the subject line, if any of these efforts want to land changes in the OFF spec, mailing suggestions to this list and expecting Vlad to copy and paste text from email app to document editor app seems a bit... cruel :) Clearly this is a solved problem :)

I expect that many of those Github repos would close, if there was a true central repo that their energy could be productively funnelled into.

Thank you Dave, this is a very impressive and comprehensive list of resources, and very useful to have handy for future references.
When it comes to editorial efforts, while certain things may definitely become easier to handle, I don’t expect that everything can be automated. ISO Directives impose certain specific guidelines on project editors on how ISO documents need to be written / structured, they have their own lingo of sorts (ISO English if you will) – the latest amendment available for download from publicly available standards is a good example, and had to be rewritten using recently updated guidelines (which means that “cruel work of copying / pasting” had to be repeated to a degree, since my early draft didn’t comply with updated requirements. ☺

Given 'here' is somewhat random Austrian university mailman, can the AHG have such a Github repo?

A caveat – “here” being “Austrian university mailman” isn’t random – it is what MPEG approved to be used as the AHG email list. After you and I chatted about using GitHub, I did send the question to ISO folks to help me figure out whether it would be possible to move the maintenance work of the OFF standard to GitHub, but have not heard back yet. I will ping them again to see if we can get it going, hopefully soon.

Thanks,
Vlad


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