Fixed font v multiple fonts

[Hallam-Baker, Phillip]

> > Well, I'm currently working both in the IETF (one fixed 
> width font) and
> > in the GGF (as many variable fonts as you want). I find 
> IETF documents
> > substantially easier to deal with. They are much smaller, 
> which is an
> > immense advantage when you are on the road or on a lousy 
> hotel wireless
> > network. They are much easier to discuss on mailing lists 
> by trivial cut 
> > and paste. Even the diagrams can easily be cut, pasted, and 
> updated. 
> 
> This line of discussion has, as we've seen repeatedly,
> extraordinarily high likelihood of becoming very
> unproductive very quickly.  If there's a real problem here
> aside from differences in personal preference, let's put
> some text to it and move on, otherwise let's just move on.

The real problem here is that there is absolutely no process
for actually deciding the issue. The status quo wins because
inertia is always the strongest argument in the IETF.

Brian might be right in his assertion that specs that look like
they came off a 1950s era teletype might be the acme of
perfection for a standards process. But why does he and the
rest of the establishment get to decide for the rest of us?

Postscript is allowed, despite the fact that it is a closed
proprietary markup. So why not allow groups to choose to use 
HTML?

Why do I have to waste my time fighting Word to make it produce
baddly formatted text that usually prints out wrong on the
printer anyway?

If the IETF is "open and inclusive" why not allow for some
degree of choice in the matter?

		Phill