[Textbook-l] RE: Eureka! Introducing WikiGroups

[Daniel Mayer]

Wouter wrote:
>Standard GNU/Linux have a few pdf-readers, 
>like xpdf, kghostview, gv,ggv. KDE and 
>OpenOffice can print to PDF. Many of these 
>programs are GPL, so what could Adobe do about 
>that?

The GPL is irrelevant here since Adobe holds the PDF
patents. This fact simply makes me feel uneasy - that
doesn't mean we shouldn't use HTML->PDF convertors
since obviously Adobe thinks its best interests are
served by trying to get as many people hooked on PDF
as possible (at least for the moment). 

The worse thing that would happen is that we would
have to stop if Adobe suddenly did the same thing that
the MP3 people did and start the process of charging
licensing fees /after/ their file format was firmly
entrenched. IIRC their patent claims over PS are more
dubious and thus less enforceable (if not expired).
That makes me feel a bit less uneasy - a free
alternative (akin to Ogg Vorbis using the sound
example) would be great but isn't even close to being
a reality. It just would be a shame if we got hooked
on the pdf thing and also got stung.

--mav


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