Fonts Working Group Charter [PROPOSED]

The mission of the Fonts Working Group, part of the Fonts Activity, is to develop the EOT (Embedded OpenType) specification. EOT is a wrapper format for OpenType fonts that allows the latter to be embedded in Web documents.

Scope

The goal of EOT (and of the working group) 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. Currently, Web Fonts is part of CSS and SVG.

Embedded in this case means that the font is logically or physically tied to the document. In EOT, that is achieved with a bi-directional link between the document and the font resource: The Web Fonts technology defines how to link (the style sheet for) a document to a font and the EOT Recommendation will define a mechanism that links an OpenType font to a document or site for which the font was made. The link from the font resource back to the document may be omitted, but in that case we say the font is linked, not embedded.

The basis for the EOT specification is the EOT submission. The working group may make however changes with good reason (e.g., to improve clarity, implementability, or internationalization) provided these modifications are taken up by implementers.

In addition to the features described in the submission, the working group should address at least the following issues:

• How to apply EOT to a group of documents or to one or more whole Web sites, including to documents that did not exist at the time the EOT resource was created.
• Using EOT for linked fonts. For fonts whose copyright licenses permit it (“free fonts”), linking is often more efficient and more scalable than embedding. Linked fonts would still use the subsetting and compression features of EOT.
• The role of user agents in enforcing the license associated with a linked fonts, including in the case when the user saves the document on its local system.
• The conformance criteria of the parts of OpenType that are exposed in EOT.
• The role of user agents in enforcing the license of linked or embedded fonts, including when documents are downloaded and viewed off-line.
• The need for a human-readable license (or a pointer to one) in the EOT file.
• Handling font families with more than four variants. (OpenType recommends to use the “Preferred Family” parameter instead of the “Font Family Name” to avoid this problem. But the EOT submission appears to forbid more then four variants.)
• Extensibility, in particular forward-compatibility with a possible future version that can embed other types of fonts than OpenType.

Success Criteria

The working group aims to make a W3C Recommendation for EOT, which also requires developing a test suite. The Recommendation should be implemented (both renderers and authoring tools) on at least two different platforms.

The group may organize one or more workshops, to gather feedback, to coordinate implementations, etc. One goal is also to talk to font designers and graphic designers.

Deliverables

The expected deliverables are:

• A W3C Recommendation for EOT, including the MTX compression.
• A test suite.

The group may also need to register an Internet Media Type for EOT.

Other Deliverables

The working group will review the Web Fonts specification (which is expected to be developed by the CSS and/or SVG working groups).

Milestones

Specification transition estimates and other milestones

The group will document significant changes from this initial schedule on the group home page.

Liaisons

W3C Groups

SVG WG & CSS WG

The SVG and CSS groups are cooperating on the Web Fonts specification. Web Fonts uses a set of descriptors (in either CSS or XML syntax) that specify the location (URL) and other metadata of a font sufficiently to allow the font to be downloaded and applied to a document. It is not specific to EOT, nor does EOT rely on Web Fonts, but Web Fonts and EOT are meant to be compatible.

XSL WG

The XSL WG has published requirements for XSL 2.0 which include Web Fonts technology. EOT fonts might be used with XSL 2.0 processors.

Participation

Effective participation to the Working Group is expected to consume 0.2 fte (one work day per week) for each participant; 0.4 fte (two days per week) for editors.

The working group may apply the Good Standing requirements of the W3C Process.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list <www-font@w3.org> and may also use the member-only mailing list <w3c-fonts-wg@w3.org>.

Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the Working Group home page.

The group holds weekly, one-hour teleconferences and two face-to-face meetings. The group may meet more or less frequently as needed.

Decision policy

As explained in the Process Document (section 3.3), this group will seek to make decisions by consensus. When the Chair puts a question and observes dissent, after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a decision (possibly after a formal vote) and any objections, and move on.

This charter is written in accordance with section 3.4, Votes of the W3C Process Document and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (5 February 2004 version). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis.

For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

About this charter

This charter for the Working Group has been created according to section 6.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process takes precedence.

Copyright © 2008 W3C ^® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved.

Created: 5 May 2008
Modified: $Date: 2009/03/19 11:02:57 $