[MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group

[Peter Constable]

> my impression is that it very much did _not_ happen in an "open" way; it was cooked up in a (metaphorical) smoke-filled back room among Microsoft and a few chosen collaborators

It wasn't "open" in the way that is being discussed now. But my comment in this thread was responding to John's suggestion that MS somehow has "veto" over OFF. And since the impression you mention is of a Microsoft "smoke-filled back room", let me provide details on development of variable fonts.

The work began as a four-way partnership with several reps each from Adobe, Apple, Google and Microsoft. We wanted these four companies engaged to maximize likelihood of a critical mass of support in software. But to make quick progress, we also wanted to avoid the need to engage legal departments, either to establish multi-party agreements between the companies or go through the overhead of establishing some truly "open" context.

From the first face-to-face meeting in March 2016, decisions on who to include in the "smoke-filled back room" were made collectively. At that first meeting, we decided to immediately expand the group to include the following:

- John Hudson as a very technically-oriented font designer
- Erik van Blokland, given his expertise on interpolation of outlines
- Dave Opstad and Tom Rickner of Monotype, representing a major foundry and given their background and expertise on GX variations
- Eric Muller, representing Amazon as another major platform vendor for text technology and Eric's expertise in text layout generally
- Adam Twardoch and Georg Seifert representing two major type design tool vendors. (Reps from the four companies were also involved in work on fonttools.)

There were several others that were discussed—particularly other designers known to have an interest in variations or people involved in CSS—but the general consensus I got from the group was to hold off until we had an initial design ready for broader review. For instance, both Behdad and John, here requesting more "open" process, were among those saying at that time, "Let's keep it simple."

These decisions were with an understanding that we would later engage a much wider group to review and provide input. And around the end of July or early August 2016, we did engage a much larger group to review our draft proposal and provide input. Aside from others at Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft or Monotype, that list included (in rough categories—some people fall into multiple categories):

- CSS experts: John Daggett, Jonathan Kew, Elika Etemad, Nick Sherman

- Tool developers/vendors: Tal Leming, Frederik Berlaen, Frank Blokland, Petr van Blokland, Tom Phinney, Yuri Yarmola, David Berlow, Just Van Rossum, Tim Ahrens, Adrien Tétar

- Other foundries: Denis Jacquerye, Cosimo Lupo, Jonathan Hoefler, Andy Clymer, Bianca Berning, Akira Himei, Curt Huang

- Platform implementers: Werner Lemberg, Martin Hosken

- Tech writers: Nathan Willis

This list was prepared collectively with suggestions from any of the current working group members. I don't recall any name being suggested that wasn't included. Microsoft didn't have any special voice in choosing this group. All of the above were invited to attend or join by teleconf a face-to-face meeting that was held in late August 2016 during TypeCon in Seattle, and several did attend.


So, there were quite a number of people from across this industry that were in the loop by early August. When this work was made fully public at ATypI in September 2016, it was presented jointly by Adobe, Apple, Google and Microsoft, and all of the press coverage that followed made clear that these four companies were involved. Not just Microsoft, or particularly highlighting Microsoft. Also, the ATypI presentation concluded with quotations from several others that were part of the "loop" since at least early August:

- Monotype
- David Berlow, Font Bureau
- Dalton Maag
- Akihiko Morisawa, Morisawa Inc.
- SinoType
- Dutch Type Library
- Tom Phinney, FontLab

So, maybe if you weren't in that large loop, and if you weren't present or didn't watch the ATypI presentation, I could perhaps understand the impression of a "smoke-filled back room" at one of the four companies. 

But not a particularly Microsoft back room, unless you also didn't read any of the various press articles that followed, and weren't subscribed to the AHG list to see the contributions to OFF coming from the four companies, and paid attention only to the OT spec on Microsoft's site.

More likely, if there's an impression of a particularly Microsoft back room, my guess is that might be a side effect of people mostly using the OT spec as their reference, and hence Microsoft having a particular influence. But if one can step back in time to September 2016, it's not clear to me how that impression would arise.


Peter


-----Original Message-----
From: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at> On Behalf Of Jonathan Kew
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2020 3:31 PM
To: mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] Proposal to discontinue the AdHoc Group

On 23/09/2020 23:21, Peter Constable wrote:
>
> > Finally, I think the tacit agreement to keep OFF and MSOT in synch
> is an inevitable point of friction for any ad hoc group, because that 
> can't be fairly managed in a way that doesn't give Microsoft an 
> effective veto on innovation — even if that veto is only exercised in 
> inaction.
>
> I don’t think this is quite right, looking at history of the past many 
> years.
>
> Microsoft as owners and stewards of the OT spec have at times provided 
> a context in which MS and other industry collaborators could innovate 
> on the font format and feed those innovations into OFF. In those 
> situations, that context provided just the kind of buffer you 
> describe. Variations is an familiar example of that.
>

However -- while I greatly appreciate the fact that the Variations work got done -- my impression is that it very much did _not_ happen in an "open" way; it was cooked up in a (metaphorical) smoke-filled back room among Microsoft and a few chosen collaborators, and then presented to the wider type world as a fait accompli.

That approach may have worked effectively in this case, but I don't think it's a good model of the kind of open, collaborative innovation process that people here are seeking.

JK

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