The goal of this activity is to standardise an interoperable and royalty-free font container, Embedded OpenType (EOT), which allows user agents to temporarily download TrueType or OpenType fonts from the Web when displaying Web pages. The download mechanism is Web Fonts, already standardized at W3C.
The targeted audience for this activity are:
The mechanism by which a style sheet or Web page indicates the location and properties of downloadable fonts (Web Fonts) is already a W3C Recommendation, used and implemented by CSS2 and SVG user agents. Web Fonts does not mandate a particular font format, and in the past this has hindered interoperability. The EOT wrapper format was previously undocumented, proprietary, required licensing and was thus only implemented by a single user agent. The goal of the proposed Working Group would be to create a W3C Royalty Free Recommendation which documents the EOT wrapper format, based on the W3C Member Submission, so that other interested parties can implement it.
The EOT wrapper allows the style sheet author to specify for which domains the font may be used. This is not a technological impediment for those determined to steal fonts — the format contains digital right expressions but does not contain anti-copy schemes — but is sufficient to prevent inadvertent infringement and, we have learned, is sufficient to make existing font vendors feel comfortable with their fonts being so used in conformance with the appropriate font license.
Fonts need not use the domain locking feature (this is a difference from the existing EOT submission), provided that unrestricted download is in accordance with the font license. Free fonts may thus use EOT wrappers freely. Free fonts are an important source of typographic variety for Western languages and in some cases are essential for communication in minority or poorly-supported languages.
For a more detailed context, please see also the For and against standardizing font embedding report.
As outlined in the proposed charter, the general scope of this activity is to allow OpenType fonts to be embedded in Web documents, in particular (but not exclusively) in documents that can refer to fonts via W3C's Web Fonts technology. The font is logically or physically tied to the document, achieved with a bi-directional link between the document and the font resource.
The Fonts Activity would be chartered until the end of November 2009, with its Groups attached to the Hypertext Coordination group.
The activity would initially be composed of one Group:
Total of Team resources would be around 0.3FTE until the Fall of 2009.
See the charter.
The RF commitments related to EOT and its compression algorithm apply when and if the material becomes part of a W3C Recommendation.
Microsoft is a supporter of the Fonts activity proposal. Several font vendors and type designers expressed opinions very similar to one another: They are in favor of standardizing EOT, believe it will cause more fonts to be created and sold, and believe it protects sufficiently against casual font misuse. Companies with opinions similar to this include Monotype, Adobe, Ascender, Dalton Maag, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, and Bitstream.
The following organisations expressed high concerns about portions of the proposed activity:
See also The stakeholders' positions in the For and against standardizing font embedding report.
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