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I don't see how Adobe is related to the topic. PDF is not an "Adobe's format" anymore. PDF can be implemented by anyone without requiring any deals or license from Adobe. There are hundreds of feature-rich open-source implementations. PDF has nothing to do with Adobe.

Yes, everybody thought so. Then Adobe got pissy at Microsoft for implementing it. This news was widely covered everywhere, including Slashdot.

Whom did they sue? Can you give us some references?

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39273094,00.htm
http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39159285,00.htm
http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/188701275
http://www.pdfzone.com/c/a/Authoring/Adobe-to-Sue-Microsoft-Over-PDF-Support-in-Office-2007/
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/4509/53/
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1012_3-6079320.html
http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_to_Drop_PDF_Support_in_Office/1149284222

I have to correct myself, though: They didn't actually sue, because Microsoft settled first (by relegating the PDF support to a optional install.)

What Adobe wants is irrelevant. Nobody needs Adobe's permission to implement PDF support. Anyways, can you give us some reference to Adobe's behaviour?

Yes, everybody thought that. Then they got pissy at Microsoft for implementing it. Wow, this conversation is kind of repetitive.

ms didn't "back-down". It truly hates the idea of providing proper pdf support.

Actually, they did. Is your memory seriously this short? It only happened, what, 2 years ago? It was covered in all the trade press, extensively, it got probably 1000+ comments on Slashdot stories. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

How the Adobe-Macromedia Merger Could Impact PDF
Interview of both CEOs
Staff's comments
Article with a bit more bulk on the subject (The article linked about is quite small)

Adobe vs. Microsoft.

AFAIK Microsoft is getting their PDF and Flash replacements ready as we speak.

http://www.actionscript.com/archives/00000587.html
http://www.pdfzone.com/category2/0,1874,1836049,00 .asp

Tiered pricing solves these issues. But Adobe would probably just prefer to lose money and get the BSA to do their dirty work for them.

http://www.pdfzone.com/article2/0,1759,1758018,00. asp

Wrong, you can produce professional PDFs. If you know what you're doing. Think print filters, then apply them to output to PDFs.

Here's a helping hand...

Yes. From the PDF specification:

Adobe gives permission to anyone to:

• Prepare files in which the file content conforms to the Portable Document Format.
• Write drivers and applications that produce output represented in the Portable Document Format.
• Write software that accepts input in the form of the Portable Document Format and displays the results, prints the results, or otherwise interprets a file represented in the Portable Document Format.
• Copy Adobe's copyrighted list of operators and data structures, as well as the PDF sample code and PostScript language Function definitions in the written specification, to the extent necessary to use the Portable Document Format for the above purposes.

Prepare files in which the file content conforms to the Portable Document Format.

Write drivers and applications that produce output represented in the Portable Document Format.

Write software that accepts input in the form of the Portable Document Format and displays the results, prints the results, or otherwise interprets a file represented in the Portable Document Format.

Copy Adobe's copyrighted list of operators and data structures, as well as the PDF sample code and PostScript language Function definitions in the written specification, to the extent necessary to use the Portable Document Format for the above purposes.

The only condition on such copyright permission is that anyone who uses the copyrighted list of operators and data structures in this way must include an appropriate copyright notice.

Hmmm..... Sounds kind of familiar. We own the copyright but you may use it. Just comply with our specifications and give us credit for coming up with the format.

Try going to GhostScript.Com to get a Linux compatible PDF reader/writer.

Ahhhh... I yearn for the good old days when being able to use a computer actually meant you had to know something.

Only when a Microsoft Word file isn't the only alternative. Besides, there are non-Adobe .pdf tools here (PDFZone), here (PDFPlanet) , and here (SourceForge).

I asked a friend about this and he said, "no, but the answer is yes, there are other ways....use other OCR engines, like Omnipage Pro or TextBridge Pro. Adobe Capture 3.0 is really really really nice, but is expensive. The searchability factor is the only reason OCRing is needed in most instances."

Some useful sites:
PDF Research
Planet PDF
AcroBuddies
Codecuts
PDF Zone
Adobe
Deja.com

There is nothing stopping people from taking the same open spec and creating a compatible display system but the ability to reverse engineer Apple's effort.

DB

I really like the idea of a vector based GUI. I think that looking at more "organic" shapes is easier on the eyes than looking at all those squares and blocks.

If by "'organic' shapes" you mean the jelly blobs of Aqua, I don't think they're intrinsically tied in any way to a "vector based GUI". In fact, the Ars Technica article says as much - it says of the gelatinous buttons, "On the other hand, nothing we've discussed so far can't be duplicated with a second generation display layer."

Why use a vector based windowing system on a monitor that can only display squares and blocks efficiently.

Well, I'm not sure what's "vector-based" about Display PDF; PDF is a PostScript-like language (not entirely surprising, considering who invented PDF...), so it might be "vector-based" in that a path might be made out of lines - but the PDF spec says that a "path object" is "an arbitrary shape made of straight lines, rectangles, and cubic curves", so it's more than just "vectors" (in the sense of "lines").

The moment a vector based windowing system becomes usefull even unavoidable is when we have "analog" monitors as in "monitors that can actually display vectors" as opposed to the current "monitors that diplay bitmaps"

To put it bluntly, I would not, if I were you, hold my breath waiting for that to happen. I suspect it may be easier to make raster CRTs (you just have to make the beam scan left to right, and then scan the next line below it, and..., rather than being able to steer it arbitrarily), and the display on my desk isn't even a CRT - LCD displays (which, as far as I'm concerned, rule) are intrinsically digital monitors that display bitmaps.

I have the impression that, these days, rasterizing vectors is pretty much a solved problem.

IMHO this vector based windowing system is just a marketing buzz-word induced waste of cpu-time.

The reason for a "vector-based" (or, as I might be inclined to say, "path-based") windowing system, at least as presented by Ars Technica's article, is that "vector" transformations (which, I suspect, are transformations on vectors representing points, i.e. the vector from the origin of the coordinate system to the point, not vectors representing lines from one arbitrary point to another) can be applied to the PDF description of something being drawn.

Much of the other advantages that article ascribes to a "vector-based" windowing system, such as the stuff Aqua does with transparency, have, I suspect, little if anything to do with PDF being "vector-based" (or "path-based").

Besides, I didn't see any mention of "vector-based graphics" on the Graphics page of Apple's stuff on MacOS X; "vector-based graphics" may have been Ars Technica's term - as suggested above, I'm not sure I'd use it, and that may be why Apple doesn't appear to be using it there, either.