[MPEG-OTSPEC] MATH Encumbrance

[wjgo_10009 at btinternet.com]

> Indeed, from my perspective, having a clear patent policy is the 
> primary (sole?) virtue of the ISO standardisation of OFF.
Some people and organizations might also like to be able to say that 
they are using an International Standard, not something linked to a 
commercial organization.
For example, in my novels I refer to the Universal Character Set not 
Unicode as I do not want to mention brand names.
As well as "fonts work everywhere" one could have "fonts made by anybody 
work everywhere".
I do not claim to be expert at making fonts, yet nevertheless, since 
"fonts made by anybody work everywhere" I can install fonts made by me 
at home using the High-Logic FontCreator program in Windows 10 on my 
laptop computer and then use them in Serif PagePlus desktop publishing 
software to produce PDFs using font subset embedding that can be 
displayed using Adobe Reader, published on the web and deposited at The 
British Library.
For example, the title in the PDFs available from the following web 
page. The font used for the body text was bundled with Serif PagePlus.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/Gluten-free_Vegan_Purée_Foods_Futuristic.htm
For example, the symbols in the following.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_the_novel_chapter_042.pdf
The fonts that I produced have also been deposited at The British 
Library and accepted because they have been published.
Yet the font used in this publication has not been deposited at The 
British Library as it is my personal font and has not been published, 
though the PDF has been deposited.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/localizable_sentences_the_novel_author_note_after_chapter_046.pdf
So not commercial fonts, not made by an organization, not made by an 
expert font maker, yet perhaps good examples of the benefits of "fonts 
made by anybody work everywhere".
William Overington
Monday 24 August 2020

------ Original Message ------
From: "John Hudson" <john at tiro.ca>
To: mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
Sent: Sunday, 2020 Aug 23 At 19:15
Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] MATH Encumbrance

Dave wrote, in response to Peter:






I will say that I was a party in                   some patents in my 
time at MS that were filed solely                   for defensive 
purposes, never with any intent to                   charge licensing 
fees.




Right, and my name is on some Google patents for         font UI stuff, 
which I am fine with for the same reasons.



But isn't the point of a formal standards body to         get that 
intent turned into something in writing? And is that         what OFF 
means? Or isn't it?

Indeed, from my perspective, having a clear patent policy is the 
primary (sole?) virtue of the ISO standardisation of OFF.

The MS math layout patents are yet another case of lack of 
explicit statement creating potential uncertainty. We can accept 
the likelihood that the patents were registered for defensive 
purposes, and that Microsoft would not seek licensing fees or 
restrict use based on those or other patents related to fonts, but 
likelihood and goodwill are not certainty.

  Dave is right that inclusion in OFF should be a good case study 
of patents in the format.
JH
           --
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks Ltd    www.tiro.com <http://www.tiro.com>
Salish Sea, BC        tiro at tiro.com <mailto:tiro at tiro.com>
NOTE: In the interests of productivity, I am currently
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