[MPEG-OTSPEC] Removal of the CFF and CF2 from OFF standard (was: Proposal to make OFF complete)

[Dave Crossland]

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020, 6:55 PM Behdad Esfahbod <behdad at behdad.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 4:48 PM Dave Crossland <dcrossland at google.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 6:45 PM Behdad Esfahbod <behdad at behdad.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 4:37 PM Dave Crossland <dcrossland at google.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 5:51 PM Behdad Esfahbod <behdad at behdad.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 3:35 PM Levantovsky, Vladimir <
>>>>> Vladimir.Levantovsky at monotype.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wednesday, August 19, 2020 12:40 AM Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Moreover, I suggest CFF and CFF2 be removed from OFF. The
>>>>>> claim-to-superiority of CFF format is: 1. better hinting, and 2. better
>>>>>> compression. Re better-hinting, the interpretation of CFF hints is NOT
>>>>>> specified anywhere. Adobe's code in FreeType is what we have. Re better
>>>>>> compression, the existence of CFF in OpenType / OFF is partly why adding
>>>>>> quadratic beziers to glyf table has continually not happened.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In reality, CFF only serves Adobe, who sells their rasterizer to MS /
>>>>>> Apple platforms and serves only Adobe. Another example of Adobe abusing the
>>>>>> "open" ideology / terminology is the Noto CJK / Adobe-equivalent. It's NOT
>>>>>> open-source by any means. The sources are not available. That's something
>>>>>> that I pointed out directly to Ken Lunde at one of his Unicode Conference
>>>>>> presentations. Adobe is clearly aware of it. And I couldn't fix when I was
>>>>>> at Google.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Rip the bandaid. Make open standards truly open.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> With my SC29/WG3 member representative hat on (and _*not*_ serving
>>>>>> in my capacity as a chair of this AHG) I object to this proposal. With many
>>>>>> thousands of fonts currently deployed, and at least two (or more) different
>>>>>> implementations available – this proposal, if considered, would do more
>>>>>> harm than good.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Okay let me narrow down the proposal to removing CFF2 only.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I object to the proposal to remove CFF2, because while few CFF2 VF
>>>> fonts are available, CFF2 is now widely implemented by font engines
>>>>
>>>
>>> It's in OpenType. I don't see why it needs to be in OFF from a
>>> forward-looking point of view.
>>>
>>
>> CFF2 needs to be in OFF because then it is definitively clear of
>> rightholder friction, allowing it to be widely adopted.
>>
>
> No one has suggested *why* it needs to be widely adopted. You can't just
> say "no". I argued that OFF is *incomplete* currently.
>

Vlad brought up the counter argument that much existing usage depends on
CFF being in OFF. You accepted this but then argue that not many cff2 fonts
exist compared to cff1, or to TTF VF. But I don't think this is relevant,
because fonts themselves are only one piece of the puzzle.

Sooooooo either CFF/CFF2 should be removed, *or* it be added as a work item
> that CFF/CFF2 hinting be documented as part of OFF.
>
> Separately part of the same proposal was to document script-shaping as
> part of OFF; so I expect that to be added as a new work item proposal as
> well.
>
>
>> The many users of harfbuzz, that you tout, are doing so because OFF has
>> cleared a path for that adoption.
>>
>
> I don't see how that argument holds. HarfBuzz implements ...
>

It's an argument about adoption, not implementation.

>
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