> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Sankey) writes:
[ Why would any GNU project consider PDF?]
> > It's proprietary to Adobe, copyrighted by them, subject to change or
> > withdrawal by them at any time, and some aspects are patented.
Although it's a copyrighted format, it's also an open format. It is
well documented, and Adobe explicitly gives copyright permission for
anyone who wishes to create PDF files, write software that produces
PDF output, or write software that interprets PDF files. This is
documented in v1.3 of the specification, and cannot be taken away for
that version of the spec. The only way to withdraw that permission is
to create a new version of the specification.
This is nothing new -- PostScript had the same restrictions, and yet
GNU projects made extensive use of the PostScript language for
generating output.
> > designed from square one to allow the restriction of use of documents
> > by various codes. (I realize that they can be bypassed by any
> > competent OCR program.) In short, it is in exactly the position that
> > GIF was before Compuserve suddenly reversed its free policy on it
> > and, successfully, demanded payment for its use.
Not really. GIF had only one compression algorithm that it can use --
the patented LZW compression scheme, so yanking free support for it
affected everyone. PDF (as of 1.2) lets you choose among five in its
standard, including the Flate (zlib) scheme used in PNG. Adobe owns
none of them. When generating PDF files, GNU projects can use the
Flate compression and avoid any licensing issues.
Since Adobe doesn't own any of the compression schemes it uses, it
can't really reverse any of the compression policies itself.
For more information on how xpdf got around LZW patents in free PDF
viewers, try http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/lzw-patent.html
--
Stephen L. Peters [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGP fingerprint: BFA4 D0CF 8925 08AE 0CA5 CCDD 343D 6AC6
"Poodle: The other white meat." -- Sherman, Sherman's Lagoon
