Paul Cunningham wrote:
>
>
> Norm Jacobs <Norm.Jacobs at Sun.COM> wrote:
>
>> Paul Cunningham wrote:
>>
>>> > I haven't had the time to look into it, but I have been told that XPS
>>> > includes some MS proprietary components. IF this is true, the open
>>> > source community and printer manufacturers won't be able to fully
>>> > support XPS without a license for the proprietary technologies.
>>>
>>> If that is the case then so much for it being "open" - oh I was
>>> forgetting it's Microsoft! But they think it will be 'open', see
>>> blog
>>> http://blogs.msdn.com/andy_simonds/archive/2005/10/17/482135.aspx
>>> from late last year.
>>>
>> From the blog you mention:
>>
>>> Microsoft plans to freely license XPS technology to encourage its
>>> use as general-purpose documents. Microsoft will grant a
>>> royalty-free copyright license
>>> <http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpscopyright.mspx> to copy,
>>> display, and distribute the XML Paper Specification. Microsoft will
>>> also grant a royalty-free patent license
>>> <http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/xpspatentlic.mspx> to read, write
>>> and render XPS Documents. Execution of the licenses will be
>>> straightforward and will not require the company to sign and return
>>> the license agreement.
>>
>>
>>
>> So maybe what I heard was true, it may use proprietary tecnology, but
>> it looks like they are making an effort to provide 'open' access to
>> the proprietary technologies for XPS.
>
>
> That was my interpretation of it to. Lets just hope they, Microsoft,
> keep the specification fully 'open' and don't add their own new
> private extensions which they don't put in the spec or tell anyone
> about. If they don't they will blow this quote, from the above blog',
> away ....
> "Our customers have heterogeneous environments ? Windows, Mac,
> Unix, different types of business systems running on a variety
> of platforms and the need to build document archival systems
> and know they can manipulate the documents a hundred years
> from now."
>
> Does anyone know if ESP have got any plans to add XPS support to CUPS
> (www.cups.org) or 'ESP Print Pro' (www.easysw.com/printpro/)?
>
We were at an open source printing summit in Atlanta a few weeks ago and
the subject of
XPS came up breifly while we were discussing the use of PDF. Mike
Sweet was there as well.
He didn't seem to indicate that he was going to be developing any XPS
support for CUPS or
ESP Print Pro, but I suspect that he will incorporate an open source
solution when it becomes
available.
-Norm
