Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (6210 mails)

[Sid Boyce <sboyce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-10-08 at 12:45 -0400, James Knott wrote: 
>
> > Sid Boyce wrote:
> >
> > > James Knott wrote:
> > >
> > > > Sid Boyce wrote:
> > > > Any bets
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > on their decision to support PDF in the next version of Office just to
> > > > > tow the line that the state of Massachusetts dictated is likely to
> > > > > produce PDF's that can't be read properly on other than Windows Vista?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > My understanding of the PDF licence is that if you use the term "PDF" it
> > > > has to be compliant.  If your product produces files that won't work
> > > > with others, it can't use the term PDF.
> > >
> > > Yes but .... You and I are not Microsoft, neither do we possess their
> > > magical powers for "innovation", so they can give you an output that's
> > > not as nice to look at or read as under Vista. May be I'm an old cynic.
> > > Regards
> > > Sid.
> >
> > ISTR that they did the same thing with their version of Java.
> > Eventually, Sun won.
>
>
> But would PFD work as such a storage format? It implies that you can
> edit it. After all, current Word can make non-editable (by Word, at
> least) PDF (via whatever mechanisims).  If it is to be editable, would
> the PDF doc really contain all the needed formatting markers for
> reliable and complete editing? I would imagine that any openDoc file
> could move from one editor to another and be reasonably edited. Mainly
> because the openDoc spec was written with this in mind. But PDF can come
> from anywhere. And all PDF sources do not have editing in mind. So, I
> suspect that MS just do not want to give in to OSS (even though their
> new cluster stuff uses OSS MPI - a first use of OSS by MS) and are
> thinking that PDF will let them meet the letter of the law and, as it
> has limits for this use, make the adopters of those requirement re-think
> the utility of the requirement. Of course, given that those who decided
> to adopt this strategy seem to have a clue, perhaps they will not be ao
> easily disuaded.
>
>
> --
>
> Roger

OOo imports and exports PDF, so they would be able to import the PDF, 
edit it and export as their own format or PDF, similarly a new document 
could be created and exported as PDF, etc.
Clue-ful or clueless, that doesn't stop MS trying it on and engaging in 
a protracted argument trying to persuade enough users to exert pressure 
on their behalf ... our PDF is compliant, just lets you do more - 
remember the tricks they tried to play with kerberos until they were 
stamped on.
MS has always used OSS, their IP stack straight out of BSD and for ages 
hotmail ran on BSD.
Regards
Sid.
--
Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, licensed Private Pilot
Retired IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support 
Specialist
Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks