<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 2:55 PM Peter Constable <<a href="mailto:pgcon6@msn.com" target="_blank">pgcon6@msn.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">John has made an important point: a standard, even an ISO/IEC standard, isn’t worth much unless it’s actually implemented. My perspective on OT and OFF for several years now has been that a goal for most new technical enhancements should
be broad adoption across major platforms. <u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">...</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The lesson for me in all this has been that, whatever channel is used to introduce changes and, especially, to propose changes for new functionality, it’s critically important to have major platform vendors involved, at a minimum to give
review and give a nod that the proposed enhancements would be useful, are well-enough designed and feasible, but even better to have two or more of them indicating a desire to implement the new design in their platforms in the foreseeable future. That was
the approach I took for variations, and I think it’s been reasonably successful for industry as a whole.</p></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>&</div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 3:07 PM Levantovsky, Vladimir <<a href="mailto:Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com" target="_blank">Vladimir.Levantovsky@monotype.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:rgb(31,73,125);font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:11pt"> </span><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">When it comes to new proposals and technical changes, having private discussions to facilitate consensus and implementation plans can obviously be beneficial;
however, the lack of transparency introduces clear and present danger that the open discussion process can be circumvented in favor of getting things done quicker. I don’t think I need to remind us all about past instances where hectic decisions made for expedience
and convenience had backfired, and unnecessarily complicated the development process. The lack of transparency can also be used to make accusations of impropriety [regardless of whether real or perceived], and should be avoided at all costs. This is why it
is so important that we have these discussion here, out in the open, with unmoderated access for any interested party to join.</span></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div><div>It seems to me that having a central forum to propose Things without any guarantee of implementation, or of co-incorporation into the OFF and OT standards, is important.</div><div><br></div><div>It is not necessary for any particular implementor to have implemented, be implementing, promise or suggest a future effort to implement. </div><div><br></div><div>But it is vitally necessary for those implementers to have a window of opportunity to discuss, suggest, oppose, endorse, not oppose, those Things, so that if and when they do decide to implement, they have a clear path to follow. </div></div></div><div><br></div>Yet, this list hasn't been that central forum. </div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">While the recent obscurity of this list can be fairly easily resolved, it seems to me that that email lists are not as effective as git repos with integrated issue trackers for collaboration on documents. Of the several places where discussions have arisen in the last few years, most of them are such Github repos:</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">(1) meta discussions about how to make font format spec updates - here, on Twitter.com, and TypeDrawers.com.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">(2) editorial change ideas happening here and in</div><div class="gmail_quote"> <a href="https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/typography-issues/issues" target="_blank">https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/typography-issues/issues</a> and </div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://www.commontype.org" target="_blank">https://www.commontype.org</a> .</div><div class="gmail_quote"> <br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">(3) technical change ideas happening here and in</div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/opentype" target="_blank">https://github.com/opentype</a> ,</div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/commontype-standard/commontype/issues" target="_blank">https://github.com/commontype-standard</a> ,</div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/be5invis/OTVAR-ZVAR-Table" target="_blank">https://github.com/be5invis/OTVAR-ZVAR-Table</a> ,</div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/microsoft/OpenTypeDesignVariationAxisTags" target="_blank">https://github.com/microsoft/OpenTypeDesignVariationAxisTags</a> ,</div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/googlefonts/colr-gradients-spec" target="_blank">https://github.com/googlefonts/colr-gradients-spec</a> and</div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/microsoft/OpenType-XVAR-proposal" target="_blank">https://github.com/microsoft/OpenType-XVAR-proposal</a> .<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">(4) efforts to consolidate the 'script development specs' such as </div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/script-development/bengali" target="_blank">https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/script-development/bengali</a> from MS, </div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents/" target="_blank">https://github.com/n8willis/opentype-shaping-documents/</a> from Nathan Willis, </div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://github.com/typotheque/text-shaping" target="_blank">https://github.com/typotheque/text-shaping</a> from Liang Hai, and related tools like </div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://bitbucket.org/LindenbergSW/fontdoctools/src/master/R%C3%B6ntgen.md" target="_blank">https://bitbucket.org/LindenbergSW/fontdoctools/src/master/R%C3%B6ntgen.md</a> from Norbert Lindenberg.<div></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">So, to the subject line, if any of these efforts want to land changes in the OFF spec, mailing suggestions to this list and expecting Vlad to copy and paste text from email app to document editor app seems a bit... cruel :) Clearly this is a solved problem :) <br><br>I expect that many of those Github repos would close, if there was a true central repo that their energy could be productively funnelled into.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Given 'here' is somewhat random Austrian university mailman, can the AHG have such a Github repo? </div></div>