
No comic sans in httpd status pages - elchief
https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=145590012904434&w=2
======
gpvos

        > 	    "sans-serif; }\n”
    

Note the incorrect, "smart" quote at the end of the line. I'm not sure if
that's intentional, but this is going to be interesting.

~~~
kmm
Interestingly, my browser detects the page as Windows-1252 and displays that
quote as â€

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
That's because marc.info doesn't supply a Content-Type header (or equivalent
<meta> tag) to specify encoding, so the browser must assume it's using some
8-bit one. On most computers in Western Europe, the US and so on, it'll assume
Windows-1252.

You have to explicitly specify you want UTF-8 to get it. This would seem to be
strange since it's The Encoding now, but assuming 8-bit is necessary for
backwards-compatibility, I'm guessing.

~~~
colejohnson66
It's the same reason we have to include '<!DOCTYPE html5>' when we want the
browser to use HTML5. It's the same reason XHTML failed and we had to deal
with quirks mode for years before HTML5. Backwards compatibility sucks.

~~~
ufo
You only need to do <!DOCTYPE html>, without the 5.

~~~
colejohnson66
And that's why I program instead of web design.

~~~
chipperyman573
Are you saying web design isn't programming? HTML isn't (although HTML5 can be
if you use canvas etc), but javascript sure is.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140625075722/http://www.libres...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140625075722/http://www.libressl.org/)

> This page scientifically designed to annoy web hipsters. Donate now to stop
> the Comic Sans and Blink Tags

All the OpenBSD presentations I've read have been in Comic Sans. They really
like that font :)

~~~
snuxoll
I think they do it to make a point, they don't care about stuff being pretty,
they care about it being sane and secure. If the only thing you complain about
is a typeface then maybe they're doing their job right :)

~~~
cbd1984
Given that fonts are attack vectors, why style text at all?

~~~
snuxoll
The consideration of fonts as attack vectors is highly overplayed - the
bytecode allowed in TTF in OTF fonts is pretty limited, while mistakes have
certainly been made in FreeType and other implementations it's no worse than
the JavaScript sandbox most people are already relying on in their browsers.

~~~
DonHopkins
There are some fonts you should never install, even if they look innocuous:

[http://fontmeme.com/freefonts/134412/the_trojan_horse.font](http://fontmeme.com/freefonts/134412/the_trojan_horse.font)

And other fonts are so beautiful that merely looking at them can cause harm:

[http://re-type.com/notaweblog/2013/03/06/new-font-from-retyp...](http://re-
type.com/notaweblog/2013/03/06/new-font-from-retype-medusa/)

------
Sidnicious
Text of the message (since the site seems to be down):

\- - -

    
    
      List:       openbsd-tech
      Subject:    [PATCH] No comic sans in httpd status pages
      From:       Peter Krantz <peter () peterkrantz ! se>
      Date:       2016-02-19 16:40:33
      Message-ID: AAE82534-AF27-4CC9-B780-38F05596FE38 () peterkrantz ! se
      [Download message RAW]
    

Hi!

For some reason the httpd status pages (e.g. 404) use the Comic Sans typeface.
This patch removes comic sans and sets the typeface to the default sans-serif
typeface of the client.

This lowers the number of people contacting website maintainers with typeface
complaints bordering on harassment.

Cheers,

Peter

    
    
      ? no_comic_sans_in_404.patch
      Index: server_http.c
      ===================================================================
      RCS file: /cvs/src/usr.sbin/httpd/server_http.c,v
      retrieving revision 1.105
      diff -r1.105 server_http.c
      811c811
      < 	    "'Comic Sans MS', 'Chalkboard SE', 'Comic Neue', sans-serif; }\n"
      ---
      > 	    "sans-serif; }\n”

------
kyledrake
As I understand it, there's no Comic Sans (MS Web Fonts) in OpenBSD, so it
basically just trolls everybody else.

I thoroughly approve of it.

------
vezzy-fnord
An elegant example of a troll trolling other trolls (and few more masterful
than the OpenBSD developers), I'd reckon.

~~~
slig
Good eyes. I've been bitten by those before, took me a while to hunt that bug.

------
DominikD
This patch is a prime example of why I understand OpenBSD devs' frustration
with newcomers. It takes several hours of lurking to get the general idea of
what OpenBSD culture[1] is. And yet about once or twice a week there's someone
new coming with some demand, backward idea or GPL evangelism, who gets
aggressive when challenged. I'd flip the table every single time if I were one
of the contributors.

[1] as long as you're not devoid of sense of humor, I guess, in which case
there's no hoping

~~~
stock_toaster

      > And yet about once or twice a week there's someone new
      > coming with some demand, backward idea or GPL evangelism,
      > who gets aggressive when challenged.
    

You forgot to mention the people who try to spam the lists with propaganda for
their own rando OpenBSD fork or derivative.

As a regular reader of openbsd-misc, considering the relatively low volume of
the list, the frequency with which people just storm in with batshit craziness
is indeed boggling.

I mean..in the last three days alone, look at this[1] and this[2]. wtf!

[1]:
[https://marc.info/?t=145589643700008&r=1&w=2](https://marc.info/?t=145589643700008&r=1&w=2)

[2]:
[https://marc.info/?t=145564257000002&r=1&w=2](https://marc.info/?t=145564257000002&r=1&w=2)

~~~
nickysielicki
The shame of it is that misc posts asking for help are frequently ignored
while any troll can pop up asking about LibertyBSD or the GPL and fresh
replies roll in for a week or more.

Misc needs more self-restraint.

~~~
DominikD
Most of the questions that aren't answered in manuals do get attention.
Manuals exist for a reason and reading them is one of the core requirements
for using OpenBSD and asking questions on various lists.

Theo once said (quoting him sounds super preachy, I know) that "if you can't
study the world around you, you will remain ignorant", and this perfectly
reflect what is truly important about OpenBSD lists.

This and understanding that some of the questions get answered off the list (I
know people who got their answers like this and I know I did help once or
twice in this fashion). ;)

~~~
nickysielicki
+1. The one time I asked a question on an openbsd list, I got quality off-list
replies from the developers themselves within 24 hours.

If you do your homework and follow the netiquette, things get answered. It's a
great community. I just wish people would leave it alone and I wish misc@
would not engage trolls.

------
samlinkl
The hate for Comic Sans seemingly knows no bounds.

~~~
lomnakkus
To provide at least one data point: My feelings about Comic Sans amount to
"meh". I actually think it's a very-well designed font. It's just that people
have no idea when it's appropriate and when it isn't.

I saw the light when I realized that Simon Peyton Jones (of Haskell/GHC fame)
purposely used Comic Sans in all of his presentations -- just to weed out who
was paying attention to the _styling_ over the _content_. Generally, I think
this might be a good principle, but you _can_ definitely take it too far. For
example, SPJ's slides are always well-articulated and don't contain L33tsp33k
(or whatever we call what the kids use on IM these days).

~~~
quchen
SPJ about Comic Sans:

> This is a very funny question, "Why use Comic Sans?" So, all my talks use
> Comic Sans and I frequently see remarks like 'Simon Peyton-Jones, great talk
> about Haskell but why did he use Comic Sans?' but nobody's ever been able to
> tell me what is wrong with it. It's a nice legible font, I like it. So until
> somebody explains to me ... Ah, I understand that it's meant to be a bit
> naff, but I don't care about naff stuff, I care about being able to read it.
> So if you have got a sort of ... some rational reasons why I should not then
> I'll listen to them. But just being unfashionable? I don't care.

~~~
cbd1984
Because it's difficult to read.

~~~
lomnakkus
Are you saying that you think that Comic Sans is difficult to read?

(I'm prepared to believe you, but the main complaint I've ever heard is that
it's "silly" or "frivolous" or... well, actually I haven't heard much beyond
that.)

~~~
cbd1984
It draws too much attention to itself to be body text, yes. It requires the
reader scan the letters more than recognizing the shapes of words and moving
on. (Yes, this is why we miss misspellings and even missing words. It isn't my
job as a reader to catch that. The author should have a spellcheck program
and, if it's at all serious, a human proofreader.)

There's a reason there's a distinction between fonts for body text and title
text: Body text is all pretty simple, uniform, and easy to just scan through.
Title text is meant to be a logo in its own right, more difficult to read, and
therefore take up more of your time. Comic Sans is, arguably, a reasonable
title text font. It isn't for body text. It's meant to ape handwritten text in
comic speech balloons, but if you look at actual _good_ handwriting, it looks
more like body text than title text.

~~~
lomnakkus
> It draws too much attention to itself to be body text, yes

That's about the vaguest complaint I've ever heard. If you have statistics and
studies then I'm definitely prepared to listen, but...

------
logicrook
I have a script that do most installations and configurations that I run after
each Linux install. It contains the following lines:

### fix font issues

sudo rm /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/comic*

sudo rm /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Comic*

So no comic sans cancer for me (except when people are perverse enough to put
it into images, or worse, meatspace...)

~~~
theandrewbailey
I was watching an episode of That 70s Show a few weeks ago, and I swear I saw
Comic Sans on a sign. Not even dramatizations of the past are escapable from
it.

------
scrollaway
Be nice with the poor server. Text mirror (pastebin):

[http://dpaste.com/3E9B7BB.txt](http://dpaste.com/3E9B7BB.txt)

~~~
stygiansonic
Seems like they succeeded in their objects of "annoying web hipsters"?

~~~
pkz
Hi! I am the patch submitter and I just wanted to make an honest contribution
to fix something I thought was broken. I could not find a way to specify
custom status pages in OpenBSD httpd.

The smart quote error was my mistake. I figured patches to email lists should
be submitted in a signed email message and used Mail.app for the first time in
a while (where I have it configured). Didn't see the auto corrected quote
before sending. Contributed a new corrected patch which I hope works better.

I guess this patch will never be considered if the use of Comic sans is
intentionally hard coded into httpd but at least I tried.

------
alanh
How long had Comic Sans been used on httpd status pages? (The mind reels…)

~~~
i80and
Since it was released in 5.8, I believe.

OpenBSD projects tend to use Comic Sans as a matter of course as a ward
against hipsters[1].

[1]:
[http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan14-libressl/mgp00025.htm...](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan14-libressl/mgp00025.html)

~~~
hodwik
The irony here is that using/liking something specifically because it makes
you unusual, and wards off people who aren't like you, is exactly what hipster
means.

So OpenBSD are a bunch of hipsters.

~~~
stock_toaster
Pretty sure they were security hipsters before it was cool. ;)

------
h1fra
The message does not specify why they got complaints.

But it's fair to assume that it was a bad choice, considering the font is not
on most plateform

------
DonHopkins
The typefascists have won.

------
snorkel
A thoughtful rebuttal by Comic Sans: [http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-
comic-sans-asshole](http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole)

------
Mojah
If you prefer a clean/readable version, it's available here:
[https://marc.ttias.be/openbsd-
tech/2016-02/msg00313.php](https://marc.ttias.be/openbsd-
tech/2016-02/msg00313.php)

~~~
bcohen5055
I was hoping to click on this and find the same page in Comic Sans

------
ams6110
This reply sums it up nicely.

[https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
tech&m=145592464111609&w=2](https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-
tech&m=145592464111609&w=2)

------
rahimzayid
Farewell my dear and favorite font!

------
xylon
thank god

------
SFjulie1
I guess the idea of putting comic sans MS as a way to force companies into
putting relevant customised status error messages for users has failed.

EDIT see here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9240906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9240906)

For 500 a ticketing or a contact info to report the problem For a 404 whatever
can help the user finds it way For congestion status a link to a status page?
For stuff 40? that requires payment a link with a link for legitimately
acquiring it ... The webmasters email in case there is something to report
could be nice too ...

It really is business meaningful to customize them, I fully support shaming
irresponsible webmasters that keep default status pages with comic sans MS.

~~~
ewindisch
> shaming irresponsible webmasters that keep default status pages with comic
> sans MS.

Until they have a filesystem failure that results in the server unable to
locate the custom pages, and defaults to rendering the Comic Sans page? Even
responsible developers find themselves hitting the consequences of the chaos
monkey.

