<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 26092020 4:48 pm, Dave Crossland
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAOgqPYdRmVT_YMi2+LfMeF_LRiFVT8gQ+mNGb1EtQ+uh-fbaWw@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="auto">So I think it's more accurate to say, today:
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Microsoft's
OT ___implementation___ ***was*** the de facto standard. </span><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:sans-serif"><br>
</span></div>
<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">Past tense
because there's an implementation called the Persian words
Open and Type transliterated in Latin script, Harf Buzz,
which I argue is now established as the</span><font
face="sans-serif"> new de facto standard implementation.</font></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>HarfBuzz is definitely a very, very important implemetation of
OpenType <i>Layout</i> and of text shaping (which isn't formally
part of the OpenType or OFF specifications). But there is a lot
more to OpenType than OTL.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAOgqPYdRmVT_YMi2+LfMeF_LRiFVT8gQ+mNGb1EtQ+uh-fbaWw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">
<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:sans-serif">That's what
changed since 2015: hb is now at the core of Adobe and
Microsoft flagship products, joining Google and Facebook and
Amazon. I suspect only Apple's product line is harfbuzzless.
<br>
</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>I think you are overstating the case. HarfBuzz is at the core of
Microsoft's new browser — which has a <i>tiny</i> market share—,
but Microsoft's flagship products remain Windows and Office, and
the DWrite implementation of OpenType Layout remains critical to
those, and continues to be the de facto reference implementation
for a lot of people (not forgetting that HarfBuzz necessarily used
Microsoft's OTL implementation as a reference, since it needed to
provide compatible behaviour).<br>
</p>
<p>Adobe are using a somewhat hampered HarfBuzz as an option in
Illustrater and Photoshop alongside their other shaping engines,
and are still in alpha stage of integrating it in InDesign. I am
all for Adobe ditching their own shaping engines and embracing
HarfBuzz fully, but I suspect we're going to see multiple shaping
engines in use for some time yet.</p>
<p>So I don't think we're quite at a place where there is a single
de facto reference implementation for OpenType <i>Layout</i>, let
alone all the other aspects of OT for which HarfBuzz is not
directly responsible — e.g. rendering, variations. And a reference
implementation for OpenType <i>Layout </i>will provide the
reference for an OTL <i>implementation</i> specification, which
remains to be written and is not what either the OT or OFF
specifications are.<br>
</p>
<p>In any case, this doesn't change my initial observation that
‘Microsoft's OT spec is the <i>de facto</i> standard’ for the
font format and <i>not</i> OFF. HarfBuzz is an implementation of
OpenType: it says so explicitly in the first paragraph at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://harfbuzz.github.io/">https://harfbuzz.github.io/</a><br>
</p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: cantarell,
sans-serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2;
text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255,
255); text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial; display: inline !important; float: none;"> HarfBuzz
is an<span> </span></span><a class="ulink"
href="http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/" target="_top"
style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(52, 101, 164);
font-family: cantarell, sans-serif; font-size: medium;
font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing:
normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">OpenType</a><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: cantarell, sans-serif;
font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures:
normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;
letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline
!important; float: none;"><span> </span>text shaping engine.
Using the HarfBuzz library allows <br>
programs to convert a sequence of Unicode input into
properly formatted and <br>
positioned glyph output—for any writing system and language.</span></p>
<p>and links to the MS OT spec page, not to OFF.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I'm with you that a more open collaborative future probably does
mean feeding into OFF rather than MSOT.</p>
<p>And I think we will find that frustrating in its own ways, and I
dearly wish that the format had been openly standardised through
W3C or Unicode — or pretty much any organisation other than ISO.*<br>
</p>
<div dir="auto">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAOgqPYdRmVT_YMi2+LfMeF_LRiFVT8gQ+mNGb1EtQ+uh-fbaWw@mail.gmail.com"></blockquote>
<p>JH<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>*Back in the early 2000s Microsoft and Adobe's collaboration on
OpenType was already unraveling, and a developer from Adobe —
frustrated by what they thought was an unequal partnership in
which Adobe hampered — approached me about the possibility of
ATypI taking ownership of the font format. More recently, people
have asked me what I thought about the idea of Unicode taking
ownership of OpenType. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone
who is actually enthusiastic about OFF, and people are still
talking about trying to find a better home for OT.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks Ltd <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.tiro.com">www.tiro.com</a>
Salish Sea, BC <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:tiro@tiro.com">tiro@tiro.com</a>
NOTE: In the interests of productivity, I am currently
dealing with email on only two days per week, usually
Monday and Thursday unless this schedule is disrupted
by travel. If you need to contact me urgently, please
use some other method of communication. Thank you.</pre>
</body>
</html>