Ernest Prabhakar said on Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 02:02:20PM -0700,: > Perhaps what you are really saying - which might be at least > slightly relevant to this list - is that you only want governments > to use document formats that are supported by open source > implementations. Is that your point?
Speaking for myself, and not for the original poster. My issue is about this. See below:- http://news.com.com/2030-1046_3-5190097.html?tag=st.lh This is an interview with Bruce Chizen, Exec. VP, Adobe. <quote> (Q) You've documented a number of your key architectures: PostScript, PDF, and--albeit somewhat reluctantly--the Type 1 font format. But these are not open-source initiatives, nor are they official standards controlled by standards bodies like the World Wide Web Consortium. Although Adobe documents these formats, it alone still controls them. Have you found a profitable middle ground between proprietary architectures and open source? (A)With PostScript and PDF, we found that publishing the specifications--making them open, but not open standards, but not providing open source--is the right path for us. Once something becomes a standard driven by a standards body, it moves at a glacial pace. And innovation slows down significantly because you have to get everybody to agree and there's lots of compromise. If you make it totally open source, you don't get a return on investment. We believe that by opening up the specification, we allow other people to take advantage of it. But because we still own the source, we get to innovate around that standard more quickly than anybody else. We have found that to be a great balance. PDF is the best example of that. We work on Acrobat, we work on PDF, we announce the product, we ship it, and we open up the specification. </quote> Note the chronology in the last sentence of the last paragraph above. Which is very bad for *sovereign*, not mere intra-government use. I have no problem with that in *private* use though. Indeed, I do use PDF quite often (with LaTeX, that is). But the criteria is different for the governments. The issue when governments use the portable document format is, what if Adobe refuses to open up the next revision of the specifications? That is a possibility with corporate specs. as always. -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
