[MPEG-OTSPEC] STAT derived instances in legacy RBIZ applications

[Renzhi Li]

Hi all,

I've seen many reports about STAT-derived instance names in legacy applications — especially the applications using RBIZ (Regular-Bold-Italic-BoldItalic) family model — caused problems, especially name truncation, since these applications use legacy APIs that have a rather strict limit of derived family names, and is hard to change due to its strict binary compatibility requirements. Such APIs include GDI, and perhaps protocols used in printing.

To cope with such issues, I've came up with ideas including these options:

  1.  The Spec to specify that, font API implementations should automatically hide the derived instance or generate a compatible but artificial name for derived instances, if its name does not meet the API's limitations.
  2.  Add an extra flag HIDE_IN_LEGACY_RBIZ_APPLICATOINS = 4 into STAT's axis value tables, denoting that this axis value should be hidden in legacy applications, and instance derivation is worked as status quo.

So are there any thoughts about this problem and my purposed solutions?

Yours,
Renzhi
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