The story of how Microsoft used its monopoly in operating systems to acquire a dominant position in office applications and browsers has often been told. But there's another Microsoft monopoly that's rarely mentioned, even though most of us see it every day.
Microsoft's fonts are used to display most Web pages on the planet. Even Linux and Mac users, who often have fled Windows to avoid dependence on Microsoft, read most of their content using Microsoft fonts.
The time has come to break the Microsoft monopoly on fonts.
Microsoft's font monopoly is due to the "Core fonts for the Web" program it launched in 1996. About 10 font families--including familiar names like Arial, Georgia, Verdana and Times New Roman--were made available "for free to the Web community, on all platforms" as Microsoft told the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the time. The fonts have served us well. They've improved both aesthetics and interoperability on the Web, and they look good in a wide range of sizes. Unfortunately, Microsoft decided to close the project in 2002. The fonts are still available for anyone to use, but not to change. It is illegal to add support for more non-Western scripts.
The time has come to break the Microsoft monopoly on fonts. This is easier than it sounds. There are thousands of font families on the Web--I call them Web fonts--that are freely available for anyone to use. One such font family, for example, is Goodfish, an elegant serifed font designed by Ray Larabie in 2000. It comes in four variants (regular, italic, bold, bold italic), which are encoded as four TrueType files. When zipped, the files take up about 100k of memory. That's about the same file size as a small photograph.
Ray Larabie has generously allowed Goodfish and other fonts to be used by anyone, for free. And there are many other Web font designers. Some of their fonts look weird, and some only cover the English alphabet. Some are only suitable for print or for use in headings. Still, these fonts represent a huge untapped typographic resource for the Web.
In order to use Web fonts, browsers must be modified to start looking for TrueType files outside of the local machine. CSS2 style sheets can already refer to Web fonts, so there's no need for a new standard.
Font designers will find an outlet for their creativity; users will get visually richer content.
Browsers are already pretty good at finding information on the Web, and adding fonts to the list should be simple. There are plenty of benefits waiting on the other side: Font designers will find an outlet for their creativity, users will get visually richer content, and non-Western scripts can easily be added. Also, Web page designers can often use Web fonts instead of images to get their designs across.
Some will claim that Web fonts cannot be supported due to the risk of piracy. It is feared that people will put fonts on the Web without having permission to do so. As we know, this sometimes happens with images. Unlike some images, however, TrueType fonts carry information about permissible use. The font will know whether it's OK for it to be installed on a remote system. Only fonts that allow this should be considered for use by browsers. And even if the font is installable, browsers should not install it so that other applications can use the font. The font should be used only by the browser, and perhaps to display only pages that actively request that font.
Just as the visual appearance of the Web changed dramatically when images were introduced by Mosaic in 1993, the Web can change yet again if browsers start supporting Web fonts. I believe it will benefit everyone on the Web.
Everyone except, perhaps, the monopolist.
Biography Håkon Wium Lie is chief technology officer of Opera Software. Before joining Opera in 1999, he worked at W3C where he was responsible for the development of Cascading Style Sheets, a concept he proposed while working with Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1994.
Lets stop whining about a company that people willingly give their money to, and worrying about the creative use of Web Fonts, and better spend our time on things like... trying to gain a larger share of the market that another company, which has done a better job doing then you.
You talk like the Mac community is huge dude... Of course is not as we all know it. That's why web design in a Mac or with Mac criteria is plain wrong. You just can't sacrifice the 97% of users for just the remaining 3-4%. Nothing personal though, just business. BTW, Mac is just paying for their 80's monopoly.
Developing for the mac shouldn't be any different than on a PC. Where I design we use mozilla, and whatever platform we want. Generally you develop in mozilla and then do fixes for IE and safari afterwards. Usually they are just small little things. It's much easier than just designing with the target of IE, because it allows you to create sloppy code.
While the mac users may only be 3%, on some of the sites I maintain we have 3 million unique visitors a day, 4% of those visitors are using safari. If you are suggesting I just ignore those 90,000 users coming from safari everyday to my site then your not thinking clearly. 3% is a huge amount of users especially for any site that expects large traffic. Not to mention if the site you build doesn't work in Safari it's generally something very, very simple to fix, or safari catching you on a broken element or some sloppy coding.
I think ignoring mac users, and safari users is a big mistake. Especially since every IT conference you go to on web development, every notebook you see is a powerbook. Even most hardcore developers when they choose a notebook they go with a powerbook. And with my Macbook Pro, I run windows, and Mac.
Apple's market share is going to rise especially since they now have machines that run windows natively, as well as OS X, it makes purchasing a Mac much easier than just another Dell laptop.
First, the Mac has a disproportionately large market share in markets where fontography matters: Art and graphic design, publishing, web publishing, etc.
And that 97% market share is market share of what? Windows? Think again. Originally that meant the market share of Mac non-x86 (PPC and 68K) computers vs. PC computers as a whole, but that still meant that Apple was the fifth largest computer company.
And that 97% refers to all x86 computers, regardless of their operating system, which is not necessarily Windows, or any one flavor of Windows: The market share of Windows on x86 boxes is only about half of the total x86 boxes.
And you'l have to break that down futher into Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc. Of these WindowsXP has the largest market share, with 98 close behind.
Apple's computers now are mostly x86, which means they are PCs. So does that mean that they are also part of the 97% (which is now only 90% actually: 90% of personal computers shipped use the x86 architecture, the others use Alphas, Sparcs, Itaniums, PA-RISC, etc)? Yes, Apple is now part of that "majority of PCs," which means that if for some reason you don't like the Mac OS, you can take you MacBook and install Windows.
So, what's the point? The point is that Apple's market share is not as small as is commonly thought of: It is the second largest PC company after DELL. And it's hardware is pretty much the same as any other x86 box sold by DELL. And in the industries where fontography matters, Apple is King, as the bulk of the Windows market share, doesn't care for or need fontography (i.e. the Windows Boxes of the accounting department).
97% Windows? Probably not. Market share numbers are tricky things to pin down in many cases because of the sampling methods used.
In the case of Web browsing, the traditional method is to use the Agent String of the browser to determine the OS. There are a number of sites where you can obtain this information, and it seems as though by this criteria, about 90% of users are using some version of Windows, about 4.4% Linux, and about 3.6% Mac, and about 2% other. Of course, that's a crappy way to measure since many browsers allow you to change the agent string, and many commercial sites prohibit access unless the agent string is falsified to say it is a particular browser or OS (typically Windows). So, even though the desktop market share of Windows is probably higher than 90%, the percentage of pages served to Windows clients is likely less. The truth of the matter is, however, that nobody knows -- and web designers ought not to care (if they are doing their jobs right).
Some estimates use sales figures, comparing the OEM and retail sales of operating systems by unit, or by dollar. In that case, you bet MS has >97% share.
Market share in different markets is wildly different. Windows market share is much lower outside the US. In the professional publishing market, Windows market share is much lower.
Also, many licenses are sold for Microsoft products but never used. Until recently, major vendors required you to purchase a MS OS license whether you wanted it or not. All of the laptops our company distributes came with OEM WinXP licenses, but all have Win2K installed on them because that's the standard for the company (now) and what we've a corporate license for. All of our workstations came with OEM WinXP Pro licenses, but all run RHEL4 (well, some Mandriva 2006). Many instrumentation machines originally ran Win2K and now run one or another Linux (many vendors of scientific equipment are moving from Windows to Linux to control the instruments). In our company alone there's literally hundreds (perhaps a thousand) of computers running Linux that are counted as Windows licenses sales and not uncounted as Linux sales, yet the installed base is quite high.
Our company will no longer purchase products with web-based front-ends that require particular browsers or operating systems to work for this very reason. Potential vendors are quite obviously aware of this too.
Since your the Chief Technology Officer at Opera I'm sure you could make that happen. If its really that advantageous I may may give Opera the boost it needs seeing that it's one of the rarest browsers in use today. Not because of Microsoft but because Firefox is so much better.
Stop namecalling and start making a better browser!
This article is why Opera is stuck at 0.59% browser share (according to <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0" target="_newWindow">http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0</a>).
Rather than spending time name calling ("Everyone will be happy except the *monopolist*"), fix the bugs in the Opera browser that cause it to crash way more than IE or FF. Opera blows away FF and IE in features, but it's too unstable to use. It's pretty ugly to look at as well.
This article is evidence of why Opera is stuck at 0.59% browser share (according to <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0" target="_newWindow">http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0</a>)
Rather than namecalling ("everyone will be happy except the *Monopolist*"), get to work fixing your product. Opera blows away FF and IE in features, but is very unstable; too unstable to use as my main browser. It's also ugly to look at and feels clunky. And Opera's problems are not the fault of the "Monopolist".
Oh, and regarding your namecalling, I think I'd rather be a "monopolist" than a "whiner", any day.
The writer of this article should have done more research. For the record Typefaces are NOT protected under copyright law. That's why every font foundry on the planet tries to sell their fonts as "software" or include utilities with it.
Technically though, a typeface is NOT protected under copyright law. While the law should change, it currently does NOT protect typefaces. It's a gray area because technically installing a font on your computer could be considered a "program" but the design of the typeface is not protected.
Firstly, this is only true in the USA. In some other countries, fonts ARE protected. And even in the USA, fonts may qualify for design patents, which have similar effects (but don't last as long).
Secondly, what is not protected in the USA is the outline of the font, period. The actual TTF file? That damn well IS protected. No grey area at all: it IS a program, it IS protected by copyright law, and if you copy a TTF file without permission, you damn well ARE violating copyright.
If you want to copy the font without paying, the ONLY legal way to do it is to trace the outline yourself and create a new font using the traced outline.
Furthermore, even where a font is not protected by copyright, it might well be covered by contract law. Most professional foundries will not sell you a font unless you agree to a license that states you will not copy or modify it. And those licenses damn well are enforcable, because you read and agree to them before you pay. So again, unlike shrinkwrap EULAs, the licenses on professional fonts are not in a grey area: they are legally binding.
So please, before you spout off about how the article writer should have done more research - hows about you do a little research yourself?
Firstly, this is only true in the USA. In some other countries, fonts ARE protected. And even in the USA, fonts may qualify for design patents, which have similar effects (but don't last as long).
Secondly, what is not protected in the USA is the outline of the font, period. The actual TTF file? That damn well IS protected. No grey area at all: it IS a program, it IS protected by copyright law, and if you copy a TTF file without permission, you damn well ARE violating copyright.
If you want to copy the font without paying, the ONLY legal way to do it is to trace the outline yourself and create a new font using the traced outline.
Furthermore, even where a font is not protected by copyright, it might well be covered by contract law. Most professional foundries will not sell you a font unless you agree to a license that states you will not copy or modify it. And those licenses damn well are enforcable, because you read and agree to them before you pay. So again, unlike shrinkwrap EULAs, the licenses on professional fonts are not in a grey area: they are legally binding.
So please, before you spout off about how the article writer should have done more research - hows about you do a little research yourself?
In the US, a typeface cannot be copyrighted, but files that represent the typeface are copyrighted (e.g., the TrueType or whatever file containing the electronic representation of the font).
However, typefaces may be patented (design patent) or trademarked (the names may also be trademarked).
Expect that to change though. Agfa and MonotType as well as others are lobbying to change the law and WIPO has a committee to look into it. The OpenType system was, as one of its features, intended to permit implementation of DRM schemes in fonts. Both Agfa and Monotype "have publicly endorsed OpenType and font embedding for high-quality typography across all publishing media and for protection of intellectual property rights."
There used to be a feature in Netscape for this, but it's been lost in the transition to open source. The bug is 70132 ("Support @font-face") <a class="jive-link-external" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70132" target="_newWindow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70132</a>
What, exactly, does this supposed monopolist gain from people using the free fonts they generously gave to the web community back in 1996?
And how, exactly, does the supposed monopolist get hurt by people using somebody else's free fonts?
I think you need to get your head out of that anti-MS fog just long enough to start at least trying to make sense.
I'm all for embedded fonts technology, but blaming the current state of web fonts on Microsoft and actually faulting them for giving away hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of dollars in fonts only goes to show how deep your anti-MS psychosis goes.
What, exactly, does this supposed monopolist gain from people using the free fonts they generously gave to the web community back in 1996?
And how, exactly, does the supposed monopolist get hurt by people using somebody else's free fonts?
I think you need to get your head out of that anti-MS fog just long enough to start at least trying to make sense.
I'm all for embedded fonts technology, but blaming the current state of web fonts on Microsoft and actually faulting them for giving away hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of dollars in fonts only goes to show how deep your anti-MS psychosis goes.
"Unfortunately, Microsoft decided to close the project in 2002. The fonts are still available for anyone to use, but not to change. It is illegal to add support for more non-Western scripts."
What good is giving them away for free if they never change or progress? If Microsoft had re-opened the project, you probably would have never seen this article. The web is ever-expanding and support should be added for more non-Western scripts.
Hey, suprise us Microsoft and make the fonts open-source!
Yes open fonts would be good. There is always a catch with MS products. The Internet is open and so in time all the features of the Internet should be open too.
lol this article made me laugh. why change something if it's nowhere close to an actual improvement?
if you want to look at prettier fonts, here are a few websites:
1001fonts.com and dafont.com
as you can see, there's plenty of other fonts out there that also come in italic, bold, and bold italic. no one applies them because they make no sense to apply them. there's nothing to gain except a different aesthetic. no new funtionality, and extraordinarily huge amounts of fonts to choose from.
As font developers, we appreciate your taking the time to point out the importance of fonts.
Microsoft has not really closed their core-fonts project. Over 1 year ago, Microsoft issued a press-release informing the world (including their competitors) that their fonts were available for licensing through Ascender (www.ascendercorp.com).
Ascender would be pleased tp license Opera or any other product (operating system, application or device) to include almost any of Microsoft's currently shipping fonts, including the Web Core Fonts.
For a small fraction of what Microsoft has invested in font technologies, research and development, their competitors can ship the same fonts in their products.
Microsoft is only guilty of appreciating the importance of fonts and of being willing to invest continously for more than 17 years. We believe that this early appreciation of fonts has contributed to Microsoft's success.
We look forward to providing Arial, Georgia, Verdana and Times New Roman to all who wish to license them and Microsoft looks forward to our doing so.
With respect to your comments on piracy. It is true that some fonts carry information about permissable use. However, it is not true that a font knows; "whether it's OK to be installed on a remote system." Developers and users do need to respect the fact that fonts are valuable intellectual property (as you point out) and that their use is subject to license.
We look forward to talking with anyone wishing to license the Microsoft fonts.
"I believe it will benefit everyone on the Web. Everyone except, perhaps, the monopolist."
How do fonts benefit microsoft? Once again it must be MS's fault. This rests squarely on the shoulders of the browser and font makers. I doubt Gates and Ballmer are losing sleep over the fear of competing fonts....well they do tend to be almost insane about stuff like that....but I still doubt it.
With everything MS has done, I put standardizing fonts, which you see as monopolizing, pretty low on the list.
geez all this guy is doing is to try to improve the web and add a little diversity. I would love to be able to use more than the few standard fonts and know that everyone who looks at my website is going to see what I am intending them to see. Fact is that it rarely works like that because not everyone is happy to download a font to read a website. More fonts mean more choices for designers and a more interesting internet experience. Because M$ have over 90% of browser market share, terms of design are dictated to every web designer. IE 6 doesnt support transparent PNG, much css doesnt work in IE and they point blank refuse to cooperate with the W3C about making their browser work as a standard. These things are bad for web users, designers who have to design IE work arounds and customers who have to pay extra for the time taken to design these work arounds. The fonts are just another legacy of Microsoft's domination that is not necassarily a good thing.
I have this site (news.com.com) opened on my XP ThinkPad and my OSX iBook. The fonts are different.
Maybe it's my systems, but I don't follow this "supposed" monopoly. Maybe it's M$ who took the fonts from Apple and then forced them back unto the public via the Web.
Mr. Lie is either terribly ignorant about browser technology or he is deliberately misleading the public. Given his position as the CTO of Opera Software, I suspect the latter.
IE has support for embedded fonts since version 4.0. A freely available tool called WEFT (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/weft3/" target="_newWindow">http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/weft3/</a>) takes a TrueType font, subsets and compresses it into a EOT file, which can then to attach to a CSS stylesheet. The technology was licensed from a company called em2-solutions, based in Stockholm, Sweden--not that far from Opera's headquarter incidently.
The curly brackets or braces are not displayed properly with the Goodfish font for me. The left one instead displays a Greek Lambda and the right one Larabie Fonts in writing.
but mac doesn't make computers, ipods are also included in their figures.
Mac printers are made by HP, Mac airports are made by 3rd parties, mac screens are made by Fujitsu... just like Dells... mac chips are made by intel and three other companies... which bit do they make?
As a website developer my customers have never said to me, "keep it generic". They always want to express themselves individually. Keeping with the point of the article, this is great news that my customers may choose from at least 6,000 free font-faces to nail down the design they are imagining exactly. The other BS is just that, BS. Openness is about the people who carry the torch and prove the advantage.
Thank you Håkon Wium Lie for you great work.
I read this article as, "How to fight the clone war" on the web!
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Good Luck.
Did you ever consider the fact that market share is for PR people to worry about, not techies like Lie?
And let's ignore, for one second, the fact that Lie invented CSS, and let's instead bash his attempts to further improve the web.
Yes, that sounds like a good way to go about things...
Where I design we use mozilla, and whatever platform we want.
Generally you develop in mozilla and then do fixes for IE and
safari afterwards. Usually they are just small little things. It's
much easier than just designing with the target of IE, because it
allows you to create sloppy code.
While the mac users may only be 3%, on some of the sites I
maintain we have 3 million unique visitors a day, 4% of those
visitors are using safari. If you are suggesting I just ignore those
90,000 users coming from safari everyday to my site then your
not thinking clearly. 3% is a huge amount of users especially for
any site that expects large traffic. Not to mention if the site you
build doesn't work in Safari it's generally something very, very
simple to fix, or safari catching you on a broken element or
some sloppy coding.
I think ignoring mac users, and safari users is a big mistake.
Especially since every IT conference you go to on web
development, every notebook you see is a powerbook. Even
most hardcore developers when they choose a notebook they go
with a powerbook. And with my Macbook Pro, I run windows,
and Mac.
Apple's market share is going to rise especially since they now
have machines that run windows natively, as well as OS X, it
makes purchasing a Mac much easier than just another Dell
laptop.
And that 97% market share is market share of what? Windows? Think again. Originally that meant the market share of Mac non-x86 (PPC and 68K) computers vs. PC computers as a whole, but that still meant that Apple was the fifth largest computer company.
And that 97% refers to all x86 computers, regardless of their operating system, which is not necessarily Windows, or any one flavor of Windows: The market share of Windows on x86 boxes is only about half of the total x86 boxes.
And you'l have to break that down futher into Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, etc. Of these WindowsXP has the largest market share, with 98 close behind.
Apple's computers now are mostly x86, which means they are PCs. So does that mean that they are also part of the 97% (which is now only 90% actually: 90% of personal computers shipped use the x86 architecture, the others use Alphas, Sparcs, Itaniums, PA-RISC, etc)? Yes, Apple is now part of that "majority of PCs," which means that if for some reason you don't like the Mac OS, you can take you MacBook and install Windows.
So, what's the point? The point is that Apple's market share is not as small as is commonly thought of: It is the second largest PC company after DELL. And it's hardware is pretty much the same as any other x86 box sold by DELL. And in the industries where fontography matters, Apple is King, as the bulk of the Windows market share, doesn't care for or need fontography (i.e. the Windows Boxes of the accounting department).
are tricky things to pin down in many cases
because of the sampling methods used.
In the case of Web browsing, the traditional
method is to use the Agent String of the browser
to determine the OS. There are a number of sites
where you can obtain this information, and it
seems as though by this criteria, about 90% of
users are using some version of Windows, about
4.4% Linux, and about 3.6% Mac, and about 2%
other. Of course, that's a crappy way to measure
since many browsers allow you to change the
agent string, and many commercial sites prohibit
access unless the agent string is falsified to
say it is a particular browser or OS (typically
Windows). So, even though the desktop market
share of Windows is probably higher than 90%,
the percentage of pages served to Windows
clients is likely less. The truth of the matter
is, however, that nobody knows -- and web
designers ought not to care (if they are doing
their jobs right).
Some estimates use sales figures, comparing the
OEM and retail sales of operating systems by
unit, or by dollar. In that case, you bet MS has
>97% share.
Market share in different markets is wildly
different. Windows market share is much lower
outside the US. In the professional publishing
market, Windows market share is much lower.
Also, many licenses are sold for Microsoft
products but never used. Until recently, major
vendors required you to purchase a MS OS license
whether you wanted it or not. All of the laptops
our company distributes came with OEM WinXP
licenses, but all have Win2K installed on them
because that's the standard for the company
(now) and what we've a corporate license for.
All of our workstations came with OEM WinXP Pro
licenses, but all run RHEL4 (well, some Mandriva
2006). Many instrumentation machines originally
ran Win2K and now run one or another Linux (many
vendors of scientific equipment are moving from
Windows to Linux to control the instruments). In
our company alone there's literally hundreds
(perhaps a thousand) of computers running Linux
that are counted as Windows licenses sales and
not uncounted as Linux sales, yet the installed
base is quite high.
Our company will no longer purchase products
with web-based front-ends that require
particular browsers or operating systems to work
for this very reason. Potential vendors are
quite obviously aware of this too.
Rather than spending time name calling ("Everyone will be happy except the *monopolist*"), fix the bugs in the Opera browser that cause it to crash way more than IE or FF. Opera blows away FF and IE in features, but it's too unstable to use. It's pretty ugly to look at as well.
Rather than namecalling ("everyone will be happy except the *Monopolist*"), get to work fixing your product. Opera blows away FF and IE in features, but is very unstable; too unstable to use as my main browser. It's also ugly to look at and feels clunky. And Opera's problems are not the fault of the "Monopolist".
Oh, and regarding your namecalling, I think I'd rather be a "monopolist" than a "whiner", any day.
the record Typefaces are NOT protected under copyright law.
That's why every font foundry on the planet tries to sell their
fonts as "software" or include utilities with it.
Technically though, a typeface is NOT protected under copyright
law. While the law should change, it currently does NOT protect
typefaces. It's a gray area because technically installing a font on
your computer could be considered a "program" but the design
of the typeface is not protected.
Secondly, what is not protected in the USA is the outline of the font, period. The actual TTF file? That damn well IS protected. No grey area at all: it IS a program, it IS protected by copyright law, and if you copy a TTF file without permission, you damn well ARE violating copyright.
If you want to copy the font without paying, the ONLY legal way to do it is to trace the outline yourself and create a new font using the traced outline.
Furthermore, even where a font is not protected by copyright, it might well be covered by contract law. Most professional foundries will not sell you a font unless you agree to a license that states you will not copy or modify it. And those licenses damn well are enforcable, because you read and agree to them before you pay. So again, unlike shrinkwrap EULAs, the licenses on professional fonts are not in a grey area: they are legally binding.
So please, before you spout off about how the article writer should have done more research - hows about you do a little research yourself?
Secondly, what is not protected in the USA is the outline of the font, period. The actual TTF file? That damn well IS protected. No grey area at all: it IS a program, it IS protected by copyright law, and if you copy a TTF file without permission, you damn well ARE violating copyright.
If you want to copy the font without paying, the ONLY legal way to do it is to trace the outline yourself and create a new font using the traced outline.
Furthermore, even where a font is not protected by copyright, it might well be covered by contract law. Most professional foundries will not sell you a font unless you agree to a license that states you will not copy or modify it. And those licenses damn well are enforcable, because you read and agree to them before you pay. So again, unlike shrinkwrap EULAs, the licenses on professional fonts are not in a grey area: they are legally binding.
So please, before you spout off about how the article writer should have done more research - hows about you do a little research yourself?
files that represent the typeface are
copyrighted (e.g., the TrueType or whatever file
containing the electronic representation of the
font).
However, typefaces may be patented (design
patent) or trademarked (the names may also be
trademarked).
Expect that to change though. Agfa and MonotType
as well as others are lobbying to change the law
and WIPO has a committee to look into it. The
OpenType system was, as one of its features,
intended to permit implementation of DRM schemes
in fonts. Both Agfa and Monotype "have publicly
endorsed OpenType and font embedding for
high-quality typography across all publishing
media and for protection of intellectual
property rights."
<a class="jive-link-external" href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70132" target="_newWindow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70132</a>
And how, exactly, does the supposed monopolist get hurt by people using somebody else's free fonts?
I think you need to get your head out of that anti-MS fog just long enough to start at least trying to make sense.
I'm all for embedded fonts technology, but blaming the current state of web fonts on Microsoft and actually faulting them for giving away hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of dollars in fonts only goes to show how deep your anti-MS psychosis goes.
And how, exactly, does the supposed monopolist get hurt by people using somebody else's free fonts?
I think you need to get your head out of that anti-MS fog just long enough to start at least trying to make sense.
I'm all for embedded fonts technology, but blaming the current state of web fonts on Microsoft and actually faulting them for giving away hundreds of thousands (or perhaps millions) of dollars in fonts only goes to show how deep your anti-MS psychosis goes.
What good is giving them away for free if they never change or progress? If Microsoft had re-opened the project, you probably would have never seen this article. The web is ever-expanding and support should be added for more non-Western scripts.
Hey, suprise us Microsoft and make the fonts open-source!
Has not the written letter been around since cavemen?
There is always a catch with MS products.
The Internet is open and so in time all the features of the Internet should be open too.
Did you ever consider the fact that market share is for PR people to worry about, not techies like Lie?
And let's ignore, for one second, the fact that Lie invented CSS, and let's instead bash his attempts to further improve the web.
Yes, that sounds like a good way to go about things...
if you want to look at prettier fonts, here are a few websites:
1001fonts.com and dafont.com
as you can see, there's plenty of other fonts out there that also come in italic, bold, and bold italic. no one applies them because they make no sense to apply them. there's nothing to gain except a different aesthetic. no new funtionality, and extraordinarily huge amounts of fonts to choose from.
which will you choose?
That's plenty enough for me to want web fonts.
As font developers, we appreciate your taking the time to point out the importance of fonts.
Microsoft has not really closed their core-fonts project. Over 1 year ago, Microsoft issued a press-release informing the world (including their competitors) that their fonts were available for licensing through Ascender (www.ascendercorp.com).
Ascender would be pleased tp license Opera or any other product (operating system, application or device) to include almost any of Microsoft's currently shipping fonts, including the Web Core Fonts.
For a small fraction of what Microsoft has invested in font technologies, research and development, their competitors can ship the same fonts in their products.
Microsoft is only guilty of appreciating the importance of fonts and of being willing to invest continously for more than 17 years. We believe that this early appreciation of fonts has contributed to Microsoft's success.
We look forward to providing Arial, Georgia, Verdana and Times New Roman to all who wish to license them and Microsoft looks forward to our doing so.
With respect to your comments on piracy. It is true that some fonts carry information about permissable use. However, it is not true that a font knows; "whether it's OK to be installed on a remote system." Developers and users do need to respect the fact that fonts are valuable intellectual property (as you point out) and that their use is subject to license.
We look forward to talking with anyone wishing to license the Microsoft fonts.
Ascender Corporation
www.ascendercorp.com
Everyone except, perhaps, the monopolist."
How do fonts benefit microsoft? Once again it must be MS's fault. This rests squarely on the shoulders of the browser and font makers. I doubt Gates and Ballmer are losing sleep over the fear of competing fonts....well they do tend to be almost insane about stuff like that....but I still doubt it.
With everything MS has done, I put standardizing fonts, which you see as monopolizing, pretty low on the list.
...so let's criticize them for it. Of course, such innovations are usually overlooked entirely - at least this one gets some attention.
all this guy is doing is to try to improve the web and add a little
diversity. I would love to be able to use more than the few
standard fonts and know that everyone who looks at my website
is going to see what I am intending them to see. Fact is that it
rarely works like that because not everyone is happy to
download a font to read a website. More fonts mean more
choices for designers and a more interesting internet
experience.
Because M$ have over 90% of browser market share, terms of
design are dictated to every web designer. IE 6 doesnt support
transparent PNG, much css doesnt work in IE and they point
blank refuse to cooperate with the W3C about making their
browser work as a standard. These things are bad for web users,
designers who have to design IE work arounds and customers
who have to pay extra for the time taken to design these work
arounds. The fonts are just another legacy of Microsoft's
domination that is not necassarily a good thing.
my OSX iBook. The fonts are different.
Maybe it's my systems, but I don't follow this "supposed"
monopoly. Maybe it's M$ who took the fonts from Apple and
then forced them back unto the public via the Web.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.network54.com/Forum/7505/" target="_newWindow">http://www.network54.com/Forum/7505/</a>
Programmer #A-5 of www.totallyparanoia.com
Programmer #A-5 at www.totallyparanoia.com
IE has support for embedded fonts since version 4.0. A freely available tool called WEFT (<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/weft3/" target="_newWindow">http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/embedding/weft3/</a>) takes a TrueType font, subsets and compresses it into a EOT file, which can then to attach to a CSS stylesheet. The technology was licensed from a company called em2-solutions, based in Stockholm, Sweden--not that far from Opera's headquarter incidently.
The article argues that TrueType files should be supported. MSIE can't handle TrueType files on the web.
Mac printers are made by HP, Mac airports are made by 3rd parties, mac screens are made by Fujitsu... just like Dells... mac chips are made by intel and three other companies... which bit do they make?
Thank you Håkon Wium Lie for you great work.
I read this article as, "How to fight the clone war" on the web!