[MPEG-OTSPEC] fonts and SC34 (was RE: To add some more perspective

[MURATA Makoto]

Peter,

ISO/IEC 9541 dates back to the pre-Unicode era.  It was
started by Ed Simura of Xerox.  It failed and Unicode won.
As a result, 9541 became paperware without implementations.
The WG that did 9541 was disbanded.  I guess that 9541
will be withdrawn by systematic reviews.

SC34 does not have any important font-related projects
obviously because OFF went to SC29.  Nevertheless,
fonts are in the scope of SC34.

Regards,
Makoto

2020年9月28日(月) 15:48 Peter Constable <pgcon6 at msn.com>:

> *From:* mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at> * On Behalf Of *MURATA
> Makoto
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 27, 2020 2:26 PM
>
> >I would say any organization other than JTC1/SC29
>
> would work.  Most people in SC29 (MPEG and JPEG)
>
> have no interest in fonts.
>
>
>
> Murata-san: You’ve mentioned that “Fonts are in the scope of SC34
> <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fprotect-us.mimecast.com%2Fs%2FOZCyCER2v0u3NXYqiNOqwj&data=02%7C01%7C%7C3780a898d89f4953c4bb08d8457cf8f4%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637335750361087090&sdata=URiVhgyx7hxSkS2kRxjeMdaqdFbm0Y9dHIO8v9Uw1vw%3D&reserved=0>.”
> I’m aware that SC34 has a history with fonts with the ISO/IEC 9541 family
> of standards that goes back to 1991. The stated scope of 9541 is,
>
>
>
> “ISO/IEC 9541 <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9541:en> specifies
> the architecture of font resources, as well as the formats for font
> interchange among information processing systems.”
>
>
>
> However, I’ve never, ever seen **anything** that references any of the
> 9541 standards—neither a product or another standard or specification.
>
>
>
> Nor is there much available info, apart from purchasing the standards.
> There isn’t any Wikipedia article or any other web resource mentioning what
> the standards are or where they’re used apart from the ISO site. Even the
> preview is provided by ISO only for part 4.
>
>
>
> ISO/IEC 9541-4:2009 discusses harmonization with OFF. In its intro, it
> says,
>
>
>
> “ISO/IEC 9541 <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9541:en> is a
> font information interchange standard and is designed to be independent of
> any concrete font file format. The Open Font Format (ISO/IEC 14496-22
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:14496:-22:en>) is a font
> file format specification that is based on the TrueType font file format.
> With regard to the handling and utilization of the typographic properties
> stored in OFF file, ISO/IEC 14496-22
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:14496:-22:en> describes the
> implementations on Microsoft Windows or IBM OS/2 only. Therefore,
> ISO/IEC 14496-22
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:14496:-22:en> does not
> specify the method for defining a font resource in ISO/IEC 9541
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9541:en> architectures from
> a given OFF file, because it is out of the scope. ISO/IEC 9541-4
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9541:-4:en> fills the gap
> between OFF file and font resource in ISO/IEC 9541
> <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9541:en>.”
>
>
>
> Even in 2009, I don’t think this was accurate since OFF was implemented in
> many more products than just Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/2.
>
>
>
> I found a WG2 draft for 9541-3 Amd 2, but that just seemed to provide more
> information “for the harmonization of ISO/IEC 9541 to Open Font Format”. It
> talks about SGML (ISO 8879) as an interchange format, though that seems it
> would be a bit like saying that the interchange format for Open Office XML
> is, well, XML.
>
>
>
> So, it’s all been a very big mystery to me. I’m sure there must be useful
> information that the 9541 standards provide that OFF does not provide and
> that they are, therefore, used _*somewhere*_, just not something I’m
> familiar with.
>
>
>
> I wonder if you could shed additional light?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Peter Constable
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> mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
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>


-- 
Regards,
Makoto
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