Font servers and the ".font" root domain
Peter Fraterdeus, semiotx.com
In imagining the needs of the next millennium, it occurs to some that the distribution of certain software resources may return to a server-based "rental" or pay-per-use model. It may be advantageous to consider adapting the ubiquitous Domain Name Resolution model to the problem of transparently acquiring font (or other) resources from a network of distributed font servers.
The idea of creating a ‘.font’ (dot font) root domain certainly implies technical issues that I haven’t considered, which is why I’m putting the concept on the table here at ATypI.
As an example. a web designer specifies Adobe Myriad on her web page, and in the style sheet provides a URL for the font resource, possibly something like:
myriad.adobe.font
when a web client opens the page, the html server serves html, and the font server serves a font resource back to the client, which then builds the page using the metrics and vectors supplied by the server. The server can also encrypt the font resource with an expiring public key, which will only allow the vector data to be rasterized for a limited time, during which the key will be authenticated by the font server.
One advantage is that the font name resolver would allow for the dynamic redirection of requests, much as DNS now allows a single web site to be served from many redundant servers through traffic and load balancing.
If you’ve got some feedback or ideas about how this could work, feel free to bounce the idea around the cybersphere. Further discussion may take place in an online forum, perhaps the new atypi-members@atypi.org mailing list?
Or send your flames back to me ;-)
