[MPEG-OTSPEC] Updates to specification

Fri Aug 14 18:38:16 CEST 2020

On Friday, August 14, 2020 1:12 AM Dave Crossland wrote:

You'll have to forgive me for sounding rather partisan,
Forgiven! You should prioritize your sleep too! ☺

but emailing around docx files seems to me rather inefficient :)

Yes, it is, but there are realities we can’t change.
On top of that, the ISO SC29 have been undergoing some major org changes lately, so things are a little bit out of hands because of all the transitions happening now. It was relatively easy to find a public link for the output document of the previous meeting, not so much (yet) for the latest one, which I emailed a copy of.

Nevertheless, I took a look and from the attached:

----- 8 < -----

Mandates

1. To study the technical issues outlined in the liaison statements from SC34 (m52545) and from CSS WG (m52854)

2. Identify possible approaches to solving confirmed technical issues, and communicate with the members of CSS WG to discuss and resolve any identified ambiguities that need clarifications, or requirements for new features and technology to support new functionality.

3. Develop and propose to WG11 the items that would become the basis for a new work item, and suggest a way forward.

----- 8 < -----

Where are the documents referenced in (1)?

Input documents (as is the case here) are produced by their contributing members and it’s up to them whether they decide to make them public. In this particular case, the liaison letter from SC34 isn’t public and is only accessible to accredited members of the SC29 behind the login, but the liaison from CSS WG is public (https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2020Feb/att-0005/CSS-SC29-20200113.pdf), and I made it available as part of the original announcement back in February this year (https://lists.aau.at/pipermail/mpeg-otspec/2020-February/001770.html)

(2) seems to be a follow on from (1)

But (3) seems perfect as that's the majority of the recent conversation on this list :)

Yes and yes!

My suggestion about a github repo seems to fall within (3), too? :)

The discussions we are conducting on this list as part of the AHG activities definitely fall within mandate 3.
However, when it comes to creating a GitHub repo - it may not be as easy as we might hope. Ideally, having the whole text of OFF in public GitHub repo would be a good thing, and each proposed change would have an associated set of issues attached, but I am not sure how to get around copyrights issue – I am trying to get guidance on this. Even though ISO/IEC 14406-22 “Open Font Format” is a publicly available document (https://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/) and anyone can get their own free copy of it – you do have to click through the copyright disclaimer before ISO allows you to download a copy. In essence, every user gets a copy that is directly licensed to him/her, it’s free to use but not free for all.

Thanks,
Vlad

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 10:35 PM Levantovsky, Vladimir <Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com<mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com>> wrote:
Here is the one from previous meeting in April 2020: https://mpeg.chiariglione.org/sites/default/files/files/meetings/docs/w19174%20-%20AHGs.docx<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/UyCsCrkv5mt8Mn0RH2_D_->
I will need to do some digging to find a public link to the most recent one from July (the document is attached).

Cheers,
Vlad

From: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at<mailto:mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at>> On Behalf Of Dave Crossland
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2020 8:44 PM
To: Levantovsky, Vladimir <Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com<mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com>>
Cc: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at<mailto:mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at>>
Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] Updates to specification

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 8:28 PM Levantovsky, Vladimir <Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com<mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com>> wrote:
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.
Got it. Who is on the ISO WG for OFF, and where is the most recent publication as you described? :)

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/spNTC31pvysp39JgfqWUaS> and
https://www.commontype.org<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/8AA0C4xqwzFBP9Q2uBiDyH> .

(3) technical change ideas happening here and in
https://github.com/opentype<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/JKtIC5yrxRhZ8pQPh22ZaE> ,
https://github.com/commontype-standard<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/6XkFC73wzpCAMVxXuR9vsm> ,
https://github.com/be5invis/OTVAR-ZVAR-Table<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/mE2dC82xAMh63PZ5HzhAS_> ,
https://github.com/microsoft/OpenTypeDesignVariationAxisTags<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/Iz6MC9ryBDhknNgWFZJO_P> ,
https://github.com/googlefonts/colr-gradients-spec<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/UATEC0Rmp0uGvgDXcokCc3> and
https://github.com/microsoft/OpenType-XVAR-proposal<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/dAJHCgJGKnTA6wx1u6mBGJ> .

(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/6IjwCjRkM0unEGM4UgLzAw> from MS,
https://github.com/n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents/<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/12QzClYmL2U2GP5wIlIzWf/> from Nathan Willis,
https://github.com/typotheque/text-shaping<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/LRyXCmZn6YIjXPKoCM2b95> from Liang Hai, and related tools like
https://bitbucket.org/LindenbergSW/fontdoctools/src/master/R%C3%B6ntgen.md<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/2_iBCo20Kjhr9PLVUBgqSl> 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.

I also forgot to mention the other email lists: there's the Yahoo one that was migrated successfully to the archives here, the indx.co.uk<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/z9mxCpYqKkUnkON0U54pbA> one, and at least 2 on unicode.org<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/apEbCqxr5lF8BkPyHjlXhK>, for layout and for variations.

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. J
Haha :)

Where can we read about the guidelines for "ISO English"?

And, does that mean there is a persistent delta between the MS Typography site OT spec and the OFF spec text?

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.

Understood, and there are many other MPEG lists here.

What I meant by "random" is in a sense to echo the point I made that the list is obscure: I doubt anyone will guess "oh yes, to discuss this font format, I should join an Austrian University mailing list" :)

Indeed, outside the rather labyrinthian ISO website itself, does anyone know of any prominent notices about the existence of this mailing list on any website? I don't recall ever seeing any...

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.
🙏
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