Re: Embedding Goodies in the ODF Package (was RE: [tdf-discuss] Re: ANN: ODF 1.2 Candidate OASIS Standard ... )

On 27/06/11 11:06 PM, Simon Phipps wrote:
> On 27 Jun 2011, at 04:47, Marc Paré wrote:
>
> > > The problem with this is that now someone has to fish the fonts out of there and install them where 
> > > they are actually recognized for presenting the document.  If LibreOffice is updated to automate 
> > > the capture of fonts and their extraction again, aren't we back to the previously-unsolved problem?
> > I don't know. Is this what has happened to the .pdf files? Why could not ODF use some form of 
> > embedded fonts as Adobe Acrobat does now? There doesn't seem to be a problem with this.
> As I understand it, PDF files don't usually embed the whole font; they just embed the parts needed 
> to make the document in question render correctly in the case where the document is being 
> represented as text (since PDF is actually able to encapsulate many different ways to represent a 
> document). When it's used, the font is included in the rendering computation of the reader program, 
> and is never installed on any target system. Not that it could be since the font will be incomplete 
> anyway.
>
> For ODF, since the format is intended to be editable, the font that was embedded would need to be 
> complete and capable of being installed on any platform where that editing might take place so that 
> any text can be edited. To my eyes that poses substantial problems, such as:
> 1. * Installing fonts dynamically on any platform, seamlessly on document-load
> 2. * Removing those fonts dynamically, including knowing when to do so
> 3. * Managing the licensing for fonts so that ODF does not promote copyright infringement
>
> While it might be possible to devise kludgey solutions, each of those issues is a substantial 
> bear-trap and the first two in particular would favour implementations that have no interest in 
> being platform-independent.
>
> While it would indeed be lovely if a miracle happened, it seems to me entirely reasonable that a 
> truly open, cross-platform standard would choose not to attempt to devise solutions for these 
> challenges.
>
> S.
OO had the option to install fonts only for the use of OO, not system 
wide use. This was done through spadmin I think. I wonder how that was 
implemented.
Are 1 and 2 not effectively "add font to OO only on open, reload 
document" and "remove font from OO only" on document close (if no other 
open document requires those fonts.)
steve

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