[MPEG-OTSPEC] To add some more perspective

[Levantovsky, Vladimir]

I am afraid that the post below manifests a lack of understanding of the role the AHG plays.

The AHG has never meant to usurp the power to be the only venue for font technology development – its role is to establish the forum where new ideas and new technical proposals can be discussed and contributed for OFF standardization, regardless of whether a contribution comes from an individual or a corporate entity, whether the proposal is aiming to provide clarifications and minor updates to existing part of the standard, or if it comes as a result of collaborative development by multiple parties with the goal to introduce significant new functionality and tools.

Your examples of collaborative developments that happened independently and at different times under the auspices of the Unicode Consortium, and the fact that these proposals have been submitted via AHG and integrated in numerous amendments and new editions of the OFF standard only confirm the fact that the AHG fulfills its obligations to the type community. Whether a new proposal undergoes further discussions and updates or whether it is adopted as presented based on the AHG consensus doesn’t change the fact that this AHG enabled unrestricted access to standardization activities for all interested parties, regardless of their affiliation and participation status.

It is also important to mention that while anyone can submit a proposal, any member of the AHG can raise an objection to a submitted proposal based on its technical merits - even if a proposal has major implementer standing behind it.

Thank you,
Vladimir


From: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at> On Behalf Of Behdad Esfahbod
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 3:27 AM
To: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at>
Subject: [MPEG-OTSPEC] To add some more perspective

and respond to some of the recent commentary on the list:

Since 2014 the opentype-layout at unicode.org<mailto:opentype-layout at unicode.org> mailing list has been the de facto embodiment of the MPEG Open Font Format Ad-Hoc Group.

Since 2016 the otfontvar at unicode.org<mailto:otfontvar at unicode.org> mailing list has been the embodiment of the MPEG Open Font Format Ad-Hoc Group in matters of Variable Fonts.

So whenever "drafts" came down here, on this list, for "review", they never had any real chance to be meaningfully altered through feedback on this list. What is offered by the chair on this list for review is to double-check his copy/paste and search/replace work as well as spot typos and grammatical mistakes and suggest improved wording. Otherwise the actual work has already happened in meetings, most of them I / Google(+Facebook) hosted (opentype-layout + half of otfontvar), the rest Peter / Microsoft hosted.

I put together the agenda and chaired the opentype-layout ones. Peter managed the otfontvar ones. In all cases only Peter had the pen, and access to make changes appear in OpenType, and by the time they arrived at this list for "review" they were well underway to ship in Windows, making the technical essence unchangeable unless to address major deficiencies (eg. STAT).

behdad
http://behdad.org/<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/fbceC0Rmp0u2kByruwvVfJ/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aau.at/pipermail/mpeg-otspec/attachments/20200928/318bd020/attachment.html>