<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-size: 13px;color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><style>body{font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:#ffffff;color:black;}p{margin:0px;}</style><div>I appreciate John's interesting perspective on the "font wars" era. Perhaps it was a necessary period of pain for everyone (I don't see anyone who wasn't disadvantaged one way or another by the conflict) in order to drive further breakthroughs. I honestly believe most (if not all) of those breakthroughs would have happened anyway – although perhaps on a slower timeline. For example, Adobe really had planned to publish the Type 1 spec; they just thought they had another five years or so. (I also appreciate John's warning about complacency, although I don't believe that's the danger here.)</div><div><br></div><div>It's arguable whether OpenType was or wasn't a result of the "font wars". On the one hand, both Microsoft and Adobe (and probably Apple) were certainly weary of the conflict, and that was probably some motivation. On the other hand, both companies knew their legacy formats were outmoded and had developed separate plans for next-generation formats. When the situation became clear, everyone agreed it made more sense to collaborate.</div><div><br></div><div>I have frequently described the birth of OpenType as a matter of the planets aligning. The set of stakeholders was daunting, but is even greater today. I remain leery of any truly new formats because I'm dubious all the necessary buy-in can be achieved anywhere near as easily as some seem to think. Perhaps Variable Fonts are the exception that proves the rule. They weren't prompted by font wars-style competition, although the threat of being pressed to support a format in which certain parties didn't have a specification role was a useful selling point for participation.</div><div><br></div><div>But I'd seriously emphasize Peter's points about building the business case. I kinda get the sense Dave thinks it will all be self evident, but that's not how business cases work. As someone who struggled to get required buy-in for some of the main developments we use today, I can assure you there's no such thing as a no-brainer.</div><div><br></div><div>thanks,</div><div>David L</div><div><br></div><div>-----Original Message----- <br>From: Dave Crossland <dcrossland@google.com><span style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"></span><br style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><span style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">Sent: Sep 14, 2020 8:31 AM </span><br style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><span style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">To: mpeg-otspec </span><mpeg-otspec@lists.aau.at style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><br>Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] Introducing breaking changes into the spec (was: RE: [EXTERNAL] Proposal to deprecate derived search values) <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">...</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">But in no scenario do I see any font wars emerging. The font wars were of a time when font formats were encumbered by proprietary licensing regimes, and I've heard nothing in 2020 that indicates any one expects any contributions to any upcoming formats to not be intended for extremely wide implementation. I think the business case for that is clear to everyone here... If any vendor chooses to delay implementation of a format that they are completely free to implement, that's not a war :) And its also the current state of affairs for OFF: large parts of OFF are not widely implemented by major vendors today. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br></span></div></div></div></mpeg-otspec@lists.aau.at></dcrossland@google.com></div><div><br></div><span style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">-----Original Message----- </span><br style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><span style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;">From: John Hudson </span><john@tiro.ca style="font-size: 13.333333015441895px;"><br>Sent: Sep 14, 2020 6:46 AM <br>To: mpeg-otspec@lists.aau.at <br>Subject: Re: [MPEG-OTSPEC] Introducing breaking changes into the spec (was: RE: [EXTERNAL] Proposal to deprecate derived search values) <br><br><div class="moz-cite-prefix">Y’all are talking as if the font wars were a bad thing.</div><div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br></div><div class="moz-cite-prefix">As I recall, the font wars a) forced Adobe to open up the PS Type 1 format, enabling the explosion of independent font foundries of the 1990s, b) were a period of innovation resulting in better text rendering that was a significant contribution to the success of the Internet, and c) focused competitive efforts on internationalisation and complex script support.</div><div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br></div><div class="moz-cite-prefix">Yes, it was an uncomfortable time for the companies involved: it required them to actually do things and to innovate. And yes, it came with frustrations for font and tool makers trying to understand the new formats and implement them correctly for competing platforms. There is a lot of be said in favour of collaborative innovation on a single format, but relying on buy-in to collaboration as a prerequisite for innovation can collapse into inaction very easily.</div></john@tiro.ca><blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 0px; border-left: #0000ff 2px solid; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; font-size: 10pt; font-family: arial,sans-serif; color: black;"><dcrossland@google.com><mpeg-otspec@lists.aau.at><div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u></p></div></div>
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