[MPEG-OTSPEC] Acknowledging sources

[Simon Cozens]

On 14/08/2020 23:16, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> - You on behalf of MS demanded that LSB/RSB variations (and by extension 
> TSB/BSB variations) be encoded in the HVAR/VVAR tables because the 
> obsolete GDI "ABC" API "needs them" and can't be bothered to get them 
> from the outlines.

One thing which would at least mitigate some of these problems would for 
the spec to be honest about how ideas were originated and included. The 
features registry at least does this, so there's precedent.

In a truly community-owned spec this would be unnecessary, as there 
would be an expectation that it was the consensus of multiple 
contributors. But for a spec which is maintained by one corporate 
entity, which claims ownership over the spec, to include contributions 
from others without acknowledging the source of those contributions is 
dishonest and disingenuous.

Those of us with long memories of "embrace and extend" have some 
sensitivity for how MS has taken the ideas of others and berated them 
publicly before implementing them and claiming them as its own - this 
destroys trust and dissuades future contributions.

S