[MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group

[Levantovsky, Vladimir]

On Wednesday, September 23, 2020 1:24 PM John Hudson wrote:

While there are clearly untenable problems with the AHG, it has, in all its better moments, functioned as a buffer between individuals who just want to discuss and collaborate on font technology and the ISO bureaucracy.

What, in your opinion, has changed between “this AHG” and “the AHG in all its better moments”?

OFF is very likely to be at the end of one or more of those channels, but I still want a buffer between the collaboration and the ISO process: just a better one than this AHG.

Procedurally, the AHG is the only available buffer mechanism between outside collaborators and the ISO process. The only other alternative is direct WG involvement through National Bodies by all involved in this AHG.

Vlad


From: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at> On Behalf Of John Hudson
To: mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group

On 22092020 5:25 pm, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
3. Many of us experts outside Apple/Adobe/Microsoft will join SC29 through our national bodies

Or not.

While there are clearly untenable problems with the AHG, it has, in all its better moments, functioned as a buffer between individuals who just want to discuss and collaborate on font technology and the ISO bureaucracy. And Vlad, in all his better moments, has done a good job of managing that buffer in a way that means I don't have to deal directly with the frustrations of processes that are stuck in the late 20th Century.

There are good reasons why most of us involved in text encoding opt to work through Unicode channels rather than through our national standards bodies and the ISO 10646 process. These reasons are both procedural and also reflected in those aspects of the Unicode Standard that are extra to the part shared with ISO 10646.

Likewise, for my part, I am interested in free discussion and open collaboration, and primarily with those parts of text display and layout standardisation that are extra to the font format, e.g. shaping consistency, well-defined and testable outcomes for OTL, new tooling, etc.. That is why I welcome the new W3C initiative as providing a framework in which to identify projects on which to collaborate and appropriate channels through which to collaborate. And, yes, OFF is very likely to be at the end of one or more of those channels, but I still want a buffer between the collaboration and the ISO process: just a better one than this AHG. And my inclination, based on all the discussions here and in the issues git repo, is that the collaboration part needs to be moved further away from ISO, not closer. It needs to be entirely separate and self-governing, with its own procedures and tools for communication, collaborative editing, versioning, etc., and only after it has completed its work on specific issues should it submit, through national standards bodies, proposals to OFF. If Behdad and others want to get involved in their national standards bodies and use that engagement to help get the proposals resulting from collaboration into the standard, that's great, but the collaboration itself should be taking place elsewhere.
JH



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John Hudson

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