On 2013-10-29 4:47 PM, Quim Gil wrote:
On 10/29/2013 03:30 PM, S Page wrote:
Removing them would be detrimental for most of our users.
Detrimental... they would still be able to access all our content and functionality without losing a single readable character, right? A lot less "detrimental" than not serving them conveniently mp3, mpeg, flash, Facebook/Twitter/Google login, and other proprietary options already installed in your average Mac / Windows desktop that we decided not to support.
To be fair I'd like to point out that mp3 and mpeg require WMF to encode and serve freely licensed content in patented formats (which also have some legal issues). Flash requires WMF to author and serve stuff directly in a proprietary format. And Facebook/Twitter/Google login require WMF sites to be connected server-side to and dependent on proprietary 3rd party websites.
Proprietary fonts are copyrighted (dubiously though) not patented. WMF is not serving any 3rd party data that is proprietary or not openly licensed. And the openly licensed content itself is still served in a single open non-proprietary format to everyone. The only place open vs. non-free comes into account is on the reader's own computer. Which is very different from the other situations listed where open vs. non-free is on WMF's end.
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) [http://danielfriesen.name/]