Re: [ft-devel] what old/new FontVal says about these fonts

[Jan Bruns]

Werner LEMBERG:

> Two remarks regarding inconsistencies with the OpenType specification.
>
>  . There exists an annotated OpenType specification at
>
>      https://github.com/adobe-type-tools/aots
>
>    which discusses implementation problems.
>
>  . If you find problems in the specification, please contact Peter
>    Constable from Microsoft, who is actively maintaining the current
>    version.  [Alas, this doesn't currently hold for the TrueType
>    bytecode stuff.]

Hm, I didn't get how aots is meant to be used, so I viewed
opentype.xml as bare text src, and focused on some sections
I recently implemented on my own (specificly the GSUB/GPOS
sections). I haven't yet spent a lot of time with it, but
here's what I can already say about it:

The annotations are written against OpenType 1.4. Some of which
seem to have been adopted into OpenType 1.8, others cover topics
that a technical article optionally could mention (like "is it an
error if a font specifies an empty action list?"). Many more cover
Adobe internal language preferences (like the recommendation to
call every processing request a "program").

Intended audience is the spec editors and sometimes font
designers. They obviously didn't have thrid party implementations
in mind. It feels like they censored out clarification of open
issues relevant to anyone that might be concerned in the specs
as soon as a topic could become of some relevance to third party
implementors. May this be intended or accidently, it just feels
this way.

Gruss

Jan Bruns