[Fsf-friends] Document formats
Mahesh T. Pai
paivakil@vsnl.net
Sun Apr 18 00:12:56 IST 2004
What exactly is a standard? How do businessess profit from releasing
document format specifications?
Just found this interesting quote about PDF at
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.
We're already working on a whole series of applications, and we're
already working on the next version of PDF. It seems to
work. Customers are willing to pay a price--and even a premium--if
they believe what they're buying is innovative and reliable.
</quote>
--
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,
'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,
Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,
Kerala, India.
http://paivakil.port5.com
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