[Fsf-friends] Document formats

[Mahesh T. Pai]

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>

-- 
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  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          
                                          
  http://paivakil.port5.com         
                                          
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