WOFF metadata - should we require (rather than recommend) the use of UTF-8?

Jonathan Kew <[email protected]> Tue, 31 May 2011 10:59:48 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.web.fonts
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hello WG,

The current text of the WOFF spec says:

   The extended metadata MUST be well-formed XML encoded in UTF-8 or UTF-16. The use of UTF-8 encoding is recommended.

I'd like to suggest that we simplify this by requiring the use of UTF-8. I'm not aware that there has been any actual use of UTF-16 for this purpose in deployed content, and mandating UTF-8 would mean that UAs wishing to do something with the metadata (such as present a "Font Info"  panel to the user) don't need to sniff the data to detect the encoding and then do an appropriate conversion.

So I propose replacing the text quoted above with:

   The extended metadata MUST be well-formed XML encoded in UTF-8.

Comments?

JK