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Adobe Threatens Microsoft With Suit
lseltzer writes "Adobe has threatened an antitrust suit against Microsoft, over PDF writing in Office 2007. Adobe wants Microsoft to separate the feature and charge extra for it. Microsoft has agreed to remove PDF writing, but won't charge extra." From the eWeek article: "In February, Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen told Reuters he considered Microsoft to be the company's biggest concern. 'The competitor I worry about most is Microsoft,' Chizen said at the time. Adobe's PDF technology lets producers create and distribute documents digitally that retain designs, pictures and formatting. "
I think its FUD on MS's part: From Adobe's PDF Reference page:Unless MS extends PDF in a manner imcompatable with adobe's PDF. (but that would never happen)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
will they be coming after pdftex/pdflatex next?
Or ps2pdf?
Whats the point of opening the spec for PDF, if you don't want other people's applications to be able to write them?
From TFA (emphasis mine): Adobe hasn't 'threatened' anything. Nowhere in the story is the word 'threat' used.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
The script "ps2pdf" has been part of the Ghostscript package installed on every Linux, Solaris and BSD system for a long time.
What do Adobe think of that?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
How is it that Apple is able to get away with allowing easy generation of PDFs via OS X's printing utilities, but Microsoft can't? Did Apple pony up Adobe's danegelt? Or are they too small for Adobe to care?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
When you whine next time how come Vista doesn't have built-in the OneCare service or doesn't have this and that feature, remember this article and think again why it doesn't.
Adobe is wrong in this instance. They've opened the format for anyone to implemement since it's good for them gaining market share and ubiquity.
Now that Microsoft wants to add PDF support like thousands other 3-rd party PDF writer products out there (including OpenOffice), Adobe threatens with suit.
PDF is either an open format for anyone to implement, or licensed. You can't open it but threaten to sue if you don't like who implements it.
And it's great.
Its integrated, its almost as quick as saving the file, and most of all, it doesn't require 300megs of crappy Adobe junk to be installed which hogs your system, installs a printer driver, and adds its toolbars to every fucking application.
I hope microsoft does NOT remove PDF export functionality, because the alternative (adobe acrobat) is annoying and bloated. Sure, it might have OCR and some other niceties, but it should stick to that, instead of trying to take over every document publishing app on my PC.
The article is a bit brief and can be interpreted in many ways. The summary implies that saving to PDF will not be supported in the final release of Office 2007, even though the feature appears in the latest Public Beta 2 that is out there for all to use.
The article further does not say that this is just a European problem, as that where the alleged future theoretical lawsuit might be filed someday maybe. So, are US consumers off the hook and we will see the feature?
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
How will this affect OpenOffice's ability to write PDFs if at all?
Also, should this really be under YRO?
What about the "Print as PDF" feature that is native in Mac OS X?
Much of Mac OS Xs' display technology (Quartz) is based upon PDF which grew out of "Display Postscript" on NeXTstep & Openstep.
I don't want to be a MS fanboy here but how comes Adobe can sue MS if they want to implement pdf output ? Does that mean that as a linux user I should stop writing so much pdf because some day Adobe can charge LaTeX team in order them to continue producing pdflatex ?
Like most /.ers I hate Microsoft, and love it when they get it stuck to them. However, this does worry me a bit. Right now MS-Office is the industry standard. For both work and home I use OpenOffice.org and tell everyone else to use it to.
What worries me about this is that OOo has PDF export that gave them a nice "feature" that MS-Office didn't have. Now Adobe is going after MS, I have to wonder if OOo gets popular enough they will demand that it be removed too.
Maybe it's just my cynical anti-big-corporation views, but I don't trust Adobe enough to not use their big stick against OOo.
So why isn't Adobe expected to sue Apple? Print to PDF is an integral part of OS X.
if any of this is really true it should be pretty embarassing for adobe. i would NEVER buy an acrobat product. the free acrobat reader is such a disaster on windows, especially in browsers, that buying an advanced version is like a joke to me.
for reading i use foxit: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
for saving i make an html page and run it through some pdf generator online (i have to do that maybe twice a year for clients who will only take pdf invoices)
not to mention, isn't "Save As PDF..." built into like every other apple application, and can't pdfs be opened with apple's Preview?
-- lol pwned
The competitor I worry about most is Microsoft, Chezen said,
which is the reason why I'm going to make sure NOT to compete by, oh I don't know, actually having a superior platform; rather, I will sue and hope for the best.
Jeez how detestable... They better sue Openoffice.org and every other piece of software out there that exports to PDF before the whole industry sees through their hypocrisy. Besides... Adobe has the best PDF suite out there. Anybody who works with PDF is using it and not switching to Office just because it exports to PDF now. Or do you really think that exporting is what matters? Hell no. There have always been free pieces of software that enabled you to export to PDF, yet professionals paid the price for Acrobat and related plug-ins, and for a reason: it's a bloody good software.
But hey this is MS and they'll probably settle and pay a decent chunk of money to Adobe. Shareholders of Adobe and Macromedia, rejoice! Billy G. will foot your bill this year.
Global warming is a cube.
If Adobe can't take competition from a MS product, then their product must not be that spectacular. (Their PDF reader sucks....memory hog. Try FoxIt Reader.) I would not shed a tear for them if they lost share in the PDF market.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
The argument isn't that Microsoft doesn't have a license -- it's that Microsoft is leveraging a monopoly. The dichotomy isn't whether something is open or licensed; Adobe isn't arguing that PDF isn't open, or that Microsoft needs a license. What it's being speculated that Adobe may argue is that Microsoft, by taking advantage of that open format, is illegally extending their monopoly.
Apple's Display technology - known as Quartz - utilizes the PDF Drawing model.
Source:apple
So I'm guessing that apple took care of the licensing issues far in advance.
--ST
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
On a slightly related note, I still think its really odd that the bundled Preview app in OS X just completely smokes Acrobat Reader, in terms of display speed.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
According to the article, Adobe wants MS to charge it's cutomers for the ability to write PDF documents. Why would Adobe do that? I mean, Office 12 (er, Office 2007) can only create PDFs, it can't read or modify them. To do that, you have to use Adobe's software. Don't they like the fact that Office users are still going to be foreced to use Adobe Acrobat? This makes no sense to me.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
Neither. Microsoft said they *think* Adobe will want to sue them, and so Microsoft is releasing preemptive FUD against Adobe.
Regards,
Steve
Anyone else finding digg.com a big fat 404 right now?
This "big stick" is anti-monopoly laws. OOo isn't a monopoly in any way, shape or form.
Apple are too small, i.e. they haven't been found guilty of leveragin a monopoly.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I mean, adobe is trying to compel microsoft to price fix here!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
How is it that Apple is able to get away with allowing easy generation of PDFs
How is it that the MS fanbois leap to defend MS & Bash Apple without reading the article?
Adobe's threatened nothing. Microsoft is spreading FUD.
(and Apple uses PDF for a helluva lot more then what you've mentioned)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
when dvi is much better. Personally I stop creating PDf file long time ago. There is nothing like that feeling when your browser (Firefox) is trying to open up 10 MB pdf file, "Oh, crap..."
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
How much of a liability will PDF writing support be in the next generation of the Cairo graphics library?
Cairo with the PDF writing backend was set to ship with the next crop of distributions as the bugs have been pretty comprehensively fixed over the last few months.
It would be a shame if PDF writing support ends up tainting Linux distributions and slowing their adoption in large organisations. It seems that making at least a branch of Cairo without the PDF writing backend would be a good move for now.
The risk of having free distribution FTP sites, the free Ubuntu ShipIt service etc. threatened and forced to charge for the software they distribute because of PDF writing capabilities just seems too great.
Well, NeXT did have a license to use Display PostScript in NeXTSTEP. So even if there were licensing fees for PDF (which there aren't, afaik), Apple would probably have been covered under NeXT's previous license agreement. This is pure speculation, of course...
This guy's the limit!
I think it's only Adobe acrobat that's so slow and memory heavy. Evince on Linux and Preview on Mac OS X are hugely faster and have better UIs as well, I'm sure there must be Windows alternatives.
Isn't creating PDFs a default feature in openoffice.org ? And there are many programs in Linux which can convert a file into PDF. So how is what Microsoft is doing different from what we have in Linux ?
Linux Help
for all things on Linux
Where is this alleged PDF writer in MSFT apps? I've got Office 2003 Enterprise Edition, and I had to go out and find and install a 3rd party PDF writer.
Software is a dictatorship eg Microsoft. Other businesses are more fairly partnerships eg law partnerships, real estate partnerships, medical etc.
It is because techies have such poor social skills. They talk of libertarian ideals but in reality are mostly doormats who feel safer with a monolithic dictator. Nerds sadly trade proper ownership for the false substitute of being controlled by surrogate big daddy.
Adobe software is fighting a losing battle in a totalitarian industry where the tech worker attitude enables tyranny.
Score & Karma: SASA: Slashdot Approval Seekers Anonymous
In order to continue to include PDF functionality, OpenOffice.Org has been forced to double the price of their product.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
The whole story is FUD. Microsoft is up to something. I suspect it's part of their idea to "expose" the flaw of "open standards".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
OK, I'm stumped. Why would Microsoft leak this story unless Adobe were threatening legal action? Why is Adobe refusing to comment on it?
There's no reasonable reading of the story that doesn't include an Adobe threat of legal action. And do you really find it hard to believe that another software company would threaten Microsoft with an antirust suit?
...it's *antitrust* (read: monopoly-busting) law they're potentially going to be using, not anything regarding copyright or patents -- so yes, it's an open standard; and no, the Ghostscript team isn't vulnerable to the same argument.
Does this mean that Adobe will pull the same stunt as UniSys did? Will another format be required for everyone to migrate to?
It's clearly FUD. There is absolutely no ground for such a lawsuite. Everybody can write a PDF engine and distribute it for free.
The proof? Adobe is shipping a product (MacroMedia's Cold Fusion Server) with my F/OSS library iText to produce PDF from Cold Fusion pages. I never heard anybody at Adobe complain because I wrote a free PDF engine.
As a PDF specialist I know that the big money isn't in the conversion from Word to PDF. PDF is a lot more than text documents. The Acrobat product family is used for completely different reasons than a product like MS Word or a free library like iText.
I wonder if lawyers for Microsoft ever worry about job security. What if the cost/benefit analysis on screwing everyone over didn't prove to be profitable and Microsoft stopped. Then who would file law suits against Microsoft?
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
Queer, clunky documents with no heirachical structure, no reliable flow, no exportable images, and a single God-awful, bloated, buggy, overpriced proprietary editor.
Lets watch the two biggest monopolies battle it out.
This is nothing more then setting lines for no competes.
The consumers are fucked if monopolies can't competes with each other.
Hello companies of the world, ADAPT!!! I'm getting more and more tired of hearing companies complaining about competition eating at their fat cow revenue model. If Adobe did file a suit against M$, it would be because they fear losing significant revenue from their Acrobat product line. Companies should diversify their revenue sources and be more adaptable to a changing market.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Of course, whilst Adobe hasn't actually threatened MS with anything, if MS is running true to from then Adobe should sue them. This will be because they will implement something they call Portable Document Format, which looks like a PDF document and has the same file extension, but cannot be read by anything other than the Microsoft Portable Document reader due to some "enhancements" Microsoft has added to their implementation. After all, if they didn't do this you might be able to read the document on something not running Windows and that would be a disaster. To borrow from Snowcrach, Gates and Ballmer should have "Does not play well with others" tattooed across their foreheads.
This way, with microsoft "worried" about Adobe bringing a suit, Microsoft can introduce it's PDF replace technology.
The best thing Adobe can do is publically state that it would like MS Office to include an unadultered version of PDF output ability.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Adobe Acrobat Pro can actually do quite a few advanced things with PDF creation that you're not going to get with one of the freeware or shareware "PDF writer" utilities or plug-ins.
Most of the time, a Windows user can simply install a free package like "CutePDF Writer" which adds a printer device that makes PDFs out of anything you can send to a printer. I use it at work all the time to do things like conversion of AutoCAD drawings to PDF files.
But Adobe's Acrobat Pro lets you build PDF forms that allow users to make custom input in fields they can tab through in the reader (probably most often seen on govt. web sites that offer electronic downloadable versions of their paper forms, like IRS tax forms). It also has a lot of flexibility in controlling the DPI that a given document will be rendered to when it's made into a PDF, supports annotations and even embedded video clips in a PDF, etc. etc.
How about the folks at /. quit posting "news" with a link to articles that have little or no informative value to them. this article is nothing but fluff. who really gives a shit?
more interesting would be, say, some insight from the author as to whether adobe has gone after open source software that produces pdf files, or online pdf generators, not speculation that there might be a lawsuit. articles that report fact are always better than ones that do not.
You don't even need to install OpenOffice to get a PDF "printer" driver. Check out PDFCreator at http://www.theopencd.org/programs/pdfcreator
This is true for Crystal Reports as well. We export PDFs all the time via Crystal and have never had to install Adobe Standard to be able to do so. Although if you're willing to pay the outrageous amount of money for Crystal, they may as well give you the ability to export as a PDF since you've already been raped.
I will forever be a student.
There is an easier way. See PDFCreator. It's a simple printer driver, doesn't take up but a meg or two, installs no toolbars or nag crap. It just makes PDF files.
It's simple, clean, accurate and elegant, IMHO.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
So, this leads me to believe that it's not "we don't want you to make PDFs!" that's driving the potential lawsuit, but rather that MS wants to put things into their PDFs that wouldn't be compatible (embrace and extend, anyone?).
firezonk plonkzonk
I myself never use ms office (or other office applications for that sake), but I would be sad if the article is true about Microsoft having removed a pdf-writing ability from MS-office. As far as I can figure this means that I will still have problems with non-tech people trying to transfer information to me in format's that will give me trouble to access. I have had a professors at university upload files in MS-word format that I needed, quite annoying to have to spend time finding a good conversion method during a 1 day exam. Intelligvent people without the least computer knowledge sometimes do have interesting things to say, so there is quite a bit of knowlegde on the web in ms-word document formats.
"I don't understand why people still are using PDF when dvi is much better."
I use LaTeX as much as the next grad student (maybe more), but I still convert everything to PDF before posting it online or emailing it to anyone. I think it's easier for most people to open PDF files because they run into them so often that they are forced to deal with them.
Maybe I'm part of the problem, and by posting PS/DVI-only I would help to encourage the adoption of other formats. After all, few things irk me as much as the "copy protection" on the fill-in PDF tax forms, which prevents me from saving an editable copy of my taxes. I think I had this problem on both NE and IA returns this year.
Of course, those fill-in tax PDFs are really terrible in a number of ways. I remember not being able to enter the middle part of my SSN since the form wouldn't accept a leading zero. Also, in 2006, it's a little boggling that the forms don't do the arithmetic for you...
It's adobe. Ever since their partnership with Yahoo, where everytime Adobe tries to update it defaults to installing a yahoo toolbar, I've boycotted the PDF.
I'd love a MS PDF reader. Why should one company have exclusive rights to a file format? Unless Adobe can prove MS reverse engineered their software, I think their lawyers are smug on this one.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
I believe Display Postscript was licensed per copy shipped, which is one of the big reasons that OpenStep was so expensive. It was also reported that Apple wrote Quartz only after negotiations with Adobe over DPS broke down.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Quartz is actually a marriage of several different technologies from Apple itself, Adobe PDF, and stuff from NeXT (which had a license for PDF). I'm not sure of the legal details, but as MacKido calls it, Quartz is actually an "uber PDF," and not just PDF itself. Think of it as an implementation of PDF. This allows them to get around PDF licensing, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was some money paid to Adobe to keep them at bay.
For a lot of heavy detail, see MacKido's explanation and history of Apple's imaging technologies.
http://www.mackido.com/Software/Quartz.html
If you're generating dvi with TeX or LaTeX with a recent texlive or tetex distribution, your files get generated with pdftex/pdflatex and then get converted to dvi. So I've heard anyway -- I haven't used plain old latex in a while. I've been using pdflatex for a while now because some of the packages I use require it and because it makes the use of others easier and more convenient. As far as the TeX/LaTeX world goes, pdf is the more up to date format.
J++
PS: And this is FUD
The key to the success of Adobe's PDF format is that it is free of any licensing restrictions, so anyone can implement PDF readers/writers. Microsoft's competitors have - both operating system vendors like Apple and Linux and competing office suites like Star Office and OpenOffice.org. However Microsoft isn't allowed to - not because Adobe has any legal right to prevent it, but because Adobe claims that it won't be able to compete with Microsoft if Microsoft makes PDF features available for free like most everyone else does. Adobe charges $449 for Adobe Acrobat - something it can only get away if Microsoft isn't allowed to compete with it. In effect, it is saying "anyone can use our format and compete with our products... unless you actually present a competitive challenge."
How is it that Apple is able to get away with allowing easy generation of PDFs via OS X's printing utilities, but Microsoft can't? Did Apple pony up Adobe's danegelt? Or are they too small for Adobe to care?
Repeat after me. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, Apple is not. The rules are different for a monopoly.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+gunning+for+Adobes+
I don't get it, its been said many time now that Linux bundles software too, BUT it's not the same. Ubuntu is not bundling an Ubuntu web browser or Mandrake bundling a Mandrake email client and so forth... Microsoft is pushing for a Microsoft only solution where as Linux is open and will bundle other projects software if it is what they need. Seems to be a different comparison altogether. About MS spreading FUD on an anti-trust suit... You know what they say, nothing is more dangerous than a scared animal. Cheers, ~Allen
and the alternative to PDF in office 2007/vista will be Microsofts own format (can't remeber the name). Microsoft will be very sorry to it's customers because they really, really wanted to support a format which is known to the user and x-platform (PFD) but were prevented to do so by a potential lawsuit ?
FUD!
-S
So I'm guessing that apple took care of the licensing issues far in advance.
Licensing issues? PDF is an approved open standard with perpetual free licensing and patent protection from Adobe. Why would Apple have to take care of anything any more than all the free software projects that re-implemented it?
I wonder who I'm supposed to be 'flaming'.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
A lot of people that would prefer not to buy a separate product from Adobe ($200) to create PDFs from Office documents.
I believe there are some patches to XPDF that will make it 'ignore' the no-copy flag. I love OSS!
---- "XML is like violence. If it doesn't fix the problem, you aren't using enough."
PDF is an open format; Apple implemented it themselves in Quartz. They no longer license code from Adobe.
my computer hasn't seen this 10-minute-loading 16MB-big adobe reader since I've found the instantly-loaded 2.5MB foxit reader...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
You don't even have to RTFA for this one. From the summary at the big top of the page (you know, the top of the page?):
"Adobe has threatened an antitrust suit against Microsoft, over PDF writing in Office 2007"
Yes, same here UK and from my shell account hosted in New York.
Oh, to be a fly in that Adobe/Microsoft boardroom....
Adobe: So, we're glad you want to license the PDF spec from us. Microsoft: Yeah, how 'bout that. Say, we thought it would value-enhance PDF to add the Win32DisplayDraw method to our implementation. Adobe: Umm, adding in Windows-specific bits would make the Portable Document Format kinda non-Portable, doncha think? Microsoft: Sure, but right now, the vast majority of your users use Windows, do they not? Adobe: Uh, yeeeah.... Microsoft And you want them to have the richest eXPerience they can with your PDF format and tools, yes? Adobe: Yeeeaah... Microsoft: So why shouldn't we give them Win32PaintControl to take advantage of the capabilities of 99% of your userbase? Adobe: Because it's the Portable Document Format! Hey, wasn't "Win32PaintControl" "Win32DisplayDraw" just a second ago? Microsoft: [waves hand dismissively] Details, details. We thought that the whole Portable thing was funny, since the portability only matters to 0.001% of your customers.We also thought you might want to take advantage of the new encryption capabilities for protecting your customers' valuable data with the upcoming Vista Next Generation Secure Computing Base.
Adobe: PORTABLE! How is "Vista-only" more portable than "Windows-only"?! Microsoft: We understand. You see, we have a passion for your business. We can see that these minor modifications to the PDF standard require quite a bit of time and effort to help upgrade your customers' eXPerience and open to them new Vistas in computing through our partnership. [gets out checkbook]. How much time and effort do you think you'll need? Adobe: [eyes checkbook hungrily] Fi... Hey. Aren't you working on a PDF competitor for this new "Vista in computing"? Microsoft: Now you're just being difficult. For a talking point in our Office 2007 feature laundry list, you're sure annoying us. I think we'd better settle this in the market. We've tried to be reasonable. Adobe: Fine with me. I'm outta here! Enough of this "Windows users are the only users" crapola. [gets up and heads out] Microsoft: What was that?! You say you'll sue us for anti-trust, because you won't license PDF to us! Greedy backstabbers! Adobe: [from a ways off, without looking back] portable! Microsoft: [rolls eyes, sighs] Always with the zealots....--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
This whole trend of things taking over your system (see: Real, QuickTime, Acrobat, AOL, Yahoo!) was a reaction to MS doing all the same things since day one. It's the whole presumptive arrogance thing, where if you want one thing from MS you are presumed to want everything from MS.... and many competitors see it as self-defense to get/keep their brand "in your face." Of course, its secondary manifestation is "extension hijacking," where the default behavior of products like these is to take over file association for anything they can read or write, no matter how poorly.
IMHO this is all bad form and just the arrogant presumption that vendors must be way smarter than plain old computer users -- even if it's true in a high percentage of cases, it's one of the most annoying trends of the PC era and it was started by MS.
I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
Well, when an update for Adobe Reader comes out, I'm sure it'll install a plugin for Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7, just because those are going to be widely used software in the near future. And for Microsoft to already have support for reading it without Adobe's permission is a bad idea I guess, but Adobe is only getting recognition by allowing the user to download Adobe Reader and install the plugin... the same as if Microsoft already had it prebundled. The software is free anyhow.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
I've thought for a long, long time that someone needs to develop a free and open competitor for the proprietary PDF format. As long as Adobe owns it, it's not as useful as it could be. It has become ubiquitous because it's so darned handy. But why can't the open source community come up with something new that's competitive?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
and your excerpt doesn't help much either, I know rtfA but this is annoying
If memory serves, Apple went with the PDF framework rather than Post Script specifically because of licensing issues. Adobe was not pleased because it was not how the intended their system to work. The PDF is an open standard, and Apple simply worked with. I have no idea how this relates to original topic, but might answer the Apple question.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle. - Plato
If there is any reality to Microsoft's expectation of a suit, the inclusion of ps2pdf in those OS's has no parallel to it, since the speculated suit is an antitrust suit, which is based not only on the action of the defendant but their market-dominant position.
A point people consistently seem to miss when discussing actual or potential antitrust actions against Microsoft, resulting in spurious analogies like this.
One wonders . . . after all, with ODF poised to become the new document standard, Microsoft's proprietary .doc format may well become irrelevant. States and countries are beginning to require "open" document formats; pdf certainly qualifies, which is probably more worrisome to Microsoft than ODF, given its relative ubiquity. This, then, may well be nothing more than Microsoft attempting to paint .pdf as a non-open format.
Then again, perhaps I'm reading too much into it. It could well be that the legal eagles at Redmond have concluded that there is a litigation window here which they need to close. After all, Adobe may well license .pdf freely for now, but if I understand correctly they retain the IP rights to the format, leading to the possibility that at some time in the future they may choose to stop giving it away for free.
Doesn't matter to me - if it's more complext than a .txt file can accomodate, I now choose Oo and their ODF format; it shows every sign of becoming the new de facto standard.
... So I know how Microsoft feels. It was a very traumatic experience...
Not sure why it is a big deal for MS to include PDF printing because...
I can print to PDF from not only MS Office, but any program that has print functionality!
PDF Creator is free and can be downloaded from sourceforge.net.
I suspect that the real reason Microsoft is making these statements (and it's Microsoft, not Adobe) is that they are having second thoughts about including PDF writing in MS Office. They have their their own system now and they're probably looking for an excuse not to include PDF in the final release of Office 12.
Anyone remember Microsoft announcing it's PDF replacement last year? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/27/042225 0
"Hey if we support PDF, we think Adobe might sue us, so PDF sucks! Don't use it! By the way we have this new format coming out called Metro, you should check it out..."
There's a FF extension called PDF Download that every time you click on a PDF it will give you the option of saving it, opening it in the browser, or canceling. Works on Windows and Linux, and was made exactly for that problem. Give it a try.
The Cheese Stands Alone.
It's Adobeee.
They've tried to be the "ms" of document publishing, they don't deserve any sympathy. Sure, they're nervous MS's new (rather fucked) document format will render their own proprietry efforts irrelevent. So they should - it probably will for enough people - eventually.
Their time is over, and it's about time at that.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
That's not PDF's problem, it's the software's. Get yourself a decent reader already, or at least change your settings so PDFs aren't opened in the browser.
R.Mo
The only thing that could get Adobe nervous is if M$ is trying to incoperate some of PDFs higher functions. Indexing, built in scripting, 3d support, web push/pull, backend DB support. Imagine If you could have a PDF that links to a spreadsheet or DB even after it is created. This would esentially give you the same workflow possibilities of Office w/o having to spring for Acrobat Pro. Just printing pdfs is simple and free. The higher functions are a pay to play area.
This isn't about the PDF format, it is about the library used to create a PDF.
To provide the ability to export a PDF from their office suite, Microsoft probably licensed a library from Adobe to do that for a flat fee. I suspect the license agreement for that library to be used during development was rather loose ( the feature might have been pulled to make a release schedule ), with a clause that required the license to be renegotiated before final release. Now that the office suite is due to be released, Adobe wants a per installation fee for the library used, instead of a flat fee that covers every Office license, whether that is 100,000 or 1,000,000. So Microsoft tries to back out of the license, and releases this PR to point the blame at Adobe.
Microsoft has the money, they should either pony up or use JAWS.
Adobe has never gone after Apple or Global Graphics for creating a library that creates PDFs. It isn't that Microsoft couldn't come up with a library to create PDFs on their own, they just have a track record of buying a company to get access to a technology. Since Adobe is too large for Microsoft to buy ( and the Federal Government likely would object ) all Microsoft can do in this case is whine.
How is it that Apple is able to get away with allowing easy generation of PDFs via OS X's printing utilities, but Microsoft can't? Did Apple pony up Adobe's danegelt? Or are they too small for Adobe to care?
Anyone can implement the open PDF standard, provided they are not breaking some other law in so doing. What Adobe can potentially take MS to court for is bundling those PDF generation tools with a product them have a monopoly on. That is illegal. Apple is approaching monopoly status with iPods, so Adobe might have a case against them if they bundled their PDF generation tools with iPods. Apple doesn't though, and they don't have a monopoly on desktop operating systems so Adobe can't take them to court for bundling it with that.
I suspect all of this is part of a modified embrace and extend move. MS is also implementing another format that competes with PDF. Their plan is bundle them until Adobe (and everyone else) is gone from the PDF generation market, then deprecate the PDF format in favor of their proprietary one (since there are protections to stop them from directly corrupting the PDF standard). Then, MS will have another monopoly, using a closed format that provides one more barrier to alternate OS adoption and locks in customers even more. Also, they will be able to use this to bolster other potential monopolies, like office tools space. Imagine if OpenOffice could no longer generate the standard portable document format. Would they have any chance at adoption?
I don't know full details of the technical differences between DVI and PDF, but I do know at least one way in which PDFs surpass DVI.
When reading a longer document electronically (rather than printing it), PDFs can have internal links within the document. This is especially useful as part of the contents. As far as I know, DVI is not capable of that.
I don't normally side with MS on issues, but this whole thing strikes me as ridiculous. If MS has licensed the technology, I can seee no legal reason why they should be barred from using it. Saying it's because MS is a monopoly doesn't seem to hold water because Office isn't free anyways. The ONLY argument that might make any sense is if MS does this there is a possibility they might try to create their own PDF reader, bundle it into the OS, and then slowly and steadily corrupt the PDF standard. But that floodgate can be stopped from opening by not allowing MS to bundle their own PDF reader into the OS or to change any of the PDF reader hooks that a person might already use. And MS can distribute Adobe Acrobat Reader with MSOffice anyways for people that require it with no additional licensing because it's free already. I don't see the problem.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
On Gentoo Linux, just set the "nodrm" use flag for xpdf and it will ignore DRM in the file, allowing you to print "protected" files even when the DRM says that printing the file is not allowed.
At a guess it's probably that easy on other distros too.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
And slashdot is releasing preemtive FUD against Microsoft. There's a big surprise.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Microsoft can't afford to go to court on such a suit. They might be found to have done nothing wrong yet still have market power in the Office world, which would open up more lawsuits. I don't know if the EU, for example, uses nonmutual collateral estoppel, but if they do, Microsoft would be very unlikely to want to litigate.
Even though I think Microsoft in this case is entirely justified in having a print to PDF option.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Word Perfect much?
Corel has never woried about its native support for pdf.
I can see microsoft think that. Alot of Adobe bussiness will dissapear when that happens. especialy in acidemics where office is "free" and on every computer. We restrict who gets and does not get a pdf writer becuase of cost. (reader is standard install).
We have a lot of clueless people when it comes to computers, they could care less if its adobe or microsoft making the PDF. they are already in word when they do it.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
Now MS may decide to have it own format that does exactly the same thing.
Then, in the spirit of open community, release the API information so people can write tools to convert Adobe to the new MS format.
In about 5 years Adobe would be a fraction of the size it is today, and MS can easily do this and avoid anti-trust by not bundling. Naturaly, they would have a consumer friendly way to access the tool. They could sell it for a slight profit, and still undercut adobe by about 75%
Maybe Adobe is hoping to be bought?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Recipe to make money today:
1. Choose a Microsoft program. Select a standard feature that for some reason they are only implementing in the next version to keep up with competition (OpenOffice has had integrated PDF writing for years.)
2. Implement selected feature in a separate application, that integrates with the application. Extra bonus if you happened to develop a part of that feature (the PDF format) or the need for it.
3. Sue Microsoft for antitrust.
4. Make money!
5. Extra bonus: improve your public image with this beautiful deed (suing Microsoft).
In unrelated news, I'm looking for a qualified programming team for a startup. We'll be implementing a Direct3D-based windowing system for Windows...
Mac OS X has been able to make PDFs for most of a decade. In every application.
If putting this in Microsoft Word is such a problem, why has Apple gotten a free pass for, like, forever?
Microsoft is now distributing FUD against themselves in order to harm one of their competitors. Truly they have a dizzying intellect.
As others have said I think your real main gripe resides with Adobe Acrobat software, not the format itself.
.pdf with their newly acquired FlashPaper format. My guess is the latter will quietly disappear or perhaps be limited to Flex apps.
I have no idea what dvi is/does, but Acrobat can embed video, hyperlink internal/external documents, is extensible with JavaScript for form capability and is virtually required for interaction with the US government when exchanging documents.
I'm curious as to how Adobe will differentiate
There are probably quite a few high-end printers that can print PDF directly, no Acrobat Reader necessary. In the world of this industry the best achievers aspire to make the page rendering as multi-threaded as possible. Internally this means that the printer has two or more raster generators that work in parallel.
Data fed to the printer is not a random-acess binary but is in a serial text format. What this means is that while rasters can be generated in parallel, most likely the parsing of the printing language (PostScript for example) can only go serially, hence a bottleneck.
The next step in printing languages will be to have the pages described in a way that will permit parallel interpreting.
One big disadvantage of PDF is that one has to receive the entire file before printing begins -- the index of the pages is at the end of the file. In contrast XPS is designed to explicitely help printer interprers begin to work immediately after page-end marker is received. All data referenced by this page has already been send to the device, intepreting of this page can start immediately and go independently and in parallel with another instance of the interpreter. In this regard XPS is better.
They should go the other way and make PDF the new Crystal Reports. Instead of just one possible output format that it is now, they could use all the review/edit/approve stuff they put in their clients to great advantage.
Is it a sign that I'm not American that I initially interpreted "suit" as "clothing" in this sentence, rather than immediately assuming it to mean "lawsuit"?
I love evince too, but he was talking about large (multi megabyte) pdf files.
Try this one in evince: http://www.stm.info/info/reseau2006.pdf
Four points:
1. According to the article, "Adobe wants Microsoft to remove the feature and offer Adobe's technology separately for a fee. Microsoft has agreed to remove the feature, but is unwilling to charge for it, the Journal reported." This makes no sense to me. How can Adobe sue because Microsoft refuses to charge extra for a feature that they have agreed to remove?
2. If the story is true in any way, shape, or form, Adobe is full of crap. Either they opened pdf spec or they didn't. If they opened it then they were taking a calculated risk that they would make more money by opening the spec than by keeping it closed. The gambled that opening the spec for use by others would seed the market with pdf documents, further popularizing the format, while Adobe would make money in the pdf-editing software market by competing on features. So, they made the decision to compete, not based on format lock-in, but on pdf-editing features. They can't now whine about it. If the spec is truly "open" then it's "open" for anyone to use. If not, then sorry, it's not truly "open".
3. If the story is true, then note that Adobe is threatening suing in Europe rather than the US. Is that because they know that their case wouldn't hold up in a US court, and they have to go to a venue that's predisposed to rule against MS no matter what the grounds of the case are? Maybe Microsoft will remove pdf-export only in Europe. lol
4. I wonder what MA's take is on this. If the story is true, then pdf is "open" in theory, but not in practice. MA gave pdf its blessing based on the idea that pdf is a format that is open for anyone to use. If this isn't really the case, then look for MA to revoke its blessing, lest MA be branded as hypocrites.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Boy, did you miss the point!
i would NEVER buy an acrobat product. the free acrobat reader is such a disaster on windows
Whoever their target market is should be very nervous about Acrobat Pro if they have ever run Acrobat Reader for Windows. Reader 7 is such a steaming pile of feces that I ceratinly hope that Adobe is ashamed, very ashamed. I rather doubt it tho since they haven't bothered to fix any of the most glaring errors, like just managing to fix their fscking programming errors so it doesn't crash so readily within any browser!
...the company they should be most concerned with is Adobe since they produce such absolute crap all around.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
WTF!? XPS vs. PDF. IMO, MS FUD...(insert TLA here)
Microsoft Threatens Adobe With Chair
You are confusing PDF with Display Postscript
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
Legal issues around PDF support:/ 02/613702.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
Most notably, it exports to MS WORD format. Unfortunately, it does an utterly craptastic job at the conversion. If you thought your resume looked bad written in word (horrible justification, fuzzy bullet points, etc.) just wait to see how bad it looks when it starts as a PDF and gets exported to Word format.
How is it that the MS fanbois leap to defend MS & Bash Apple without reading the article?
Do you even know what Web site you're on? For anyone on Slashdot to read the article before commenting would set a dangerous precedent that would lead to intelligent, informed discussions. And who the hell wants that?
How I saw eWeek citing the WSJ and though Register, I can't imagine. Just stpid, I guess...
Fraunhofer invented the mp3 codec afaik...when everyone where hooked on it - they decided it was time to charge a fee for it, kind of like giving away free drugs to make the victims dependent and then charge heftily for it.
.PDF by making the customers and printers .pdf format. And when
.PDF format has become.
...and get accustomed to - especially for businesses who really DEPEND on reliability and not so much idealism.
Why should Adobe be anything different? It's all business.
They make you dependent on
you need to contact...totally reliant on the
the time is right.... when EVERYONE needs it... BRING ON THE LAWSUITS!
That's why software like OpenOffice etc. should use and develop their
own formats - and somewhat support it for the professionals so everyone
technically could benefit from it, and thus become as useful and as
popular as the
Greed does not dictate opensource and GPL software - only individual freedom of choice - hiring everyone who have the knowhow - and not the product itself. This is very contradictary to the traditional "business way" of doing things, it will take some time to get acknowledged
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
On the other hand I have used pdf for years, creating maps, fish distribution documents and many other data base documents for the government of B.C. In short the greatest road block to the internet has been microsoft and their useless office app formats! The software that built the map engine for the web site I mentioned came from Alaska and is based upon mapster a unix app, even though the Inet server app is made with an MS app. All the documents are from a 20 year old pdf data base and have tremendous depth. To do all this effectively with MS office would have been down right impossible without PDF and unix. Your statements about the PDF format are very uninformed!
Charge extra? Wha?
thank you!
the fact that i'm not in the target audience proves even further that me paying for adobe's software is even more ludicrus.
and yes hopefully adobe cleans up the acrobat reader mess, i've always been a fan but that app is just gross.
-- lol pwned
Other people have provided some reasonable answers to this, but I think there's one that they (and you) are overlooking. The alleged "threat" (and we only have MS's word that there was a threat) was to sue for ANTI-TRUST issues! That's the kind of charge that can only stick against a company which has been legally judged (or could be legally judged) to have a MONOPOLY! Apple, lacking any sort of effective monopoly in desktop platforms, is free from the threat of anti-trust suits in this matter. Microsoft is NOT!
:)
Don't like it? Get Microsoft to open up the market to competition, and give us a thriving free market again, and Microsoft will no longer be in any danger of this sort of suit. But I'm not holding my breath!
What it boils down to is that Apple is not in a position to kill the market in PDF-generating software--Microsoft is!
Besides, until the abismal HTML format is replaced with something a capable as PDF, we'll be reading PDFs.
Fud no more - Adobe Admits is talking to regulators about this in this CNET piece. "Adobe, which acknowledges it has had discussions with regulatory agencies worldwide about Microsoft's use of its PDF format, contends it has not violated any antitrust or price fixing regulations. > "The regulators we talk to are the same regulators that cover antitrust and price regulatory issues," said Holly Campbell, Adobe spokeswoman. "So, we believe we are well within the bounds of the law." > Probably the reason they didnt comment in the early reports is their PR dept was scrabmbling to figure out how they don't com out looking like Hypocrites on this. Its an open standard for Apple, Corel, Mass, but not Microsoft? Come on folks. Is it open or not? And why wouldnt they go to Brussels. IBM, Sun and Real have shown that its works. At the end of the day - Adobe's about face means consumers will get less functionality. Is that a good thing. I think not.
Very good point. I'd mod you up if I hadn't posted the comment to which you replied. :)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Actually, Adobe is threatening to sue over XPS functionality as well (which is why Office 2007 won't ship with an XPS exporter either).
... for people to switch back to MSOffice from OOo has gurgled noisily down the drain.
(OOo has had native PDF export for some time now)
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And if you don't want to pay extra... open it in Open Office, and export to PDF. Sure its extra work, but making users pay extra to save as a certain format is not the way to go.
$4.99 for Office 97, what a deal it was!
Adobe is really hurting consumers and Office users by being stingy with your PDF code. Microsoft is not going for the PDF jugular, they are responding to an overwhelming demand from their users - especially government users - to provide a PDF export feature inside Office. We want it - like 5 years ago!
Threatened lawsuit or not from Adobe, there is clearly some dispute that makes no sense. Microsoft is simply implementing an open standard that has been implemented by many, many others. Adobe is walking on thin ice if it thinks it can choose who implements an ISO standard. A better response from Adobe would be for it to create richer document management offerings and why not implement Office Open XML (and ODF). Adobe might fear some loss of distiller business, but it should stand by its own technology. In fact, Adobe could win some marketshare in broader office offerings by building on its brand and pdf technology. But the company will have to do some coding rather than hitting the courts and halls of government.
On another topic, unfortunately its probably not possible to sue publications, like the linked one, that routinely print the following phrase (as they do in the linked story): "were not immediately reachable for comment" (emphasis, mine).
Every story that prints that should be forced to replace it with: "You should know, by the way, that I am an ass sucking reporter who couldn't manage to communicate to principle sources for my story, though I may have put in minimal effort to do so (and I reserve the right to define minimal), and I work for an ass sucking publication who's editors don't give a sucked rat's ass, so we're publishing this possibly substanceless collection of blurbs but feel the need to add this line so it sounds like the principle subjects of the story suck even more ass than we do; except worded this way it's clear we suck even more ass than they do, oops (did I use a semicolon? sorry)." Or, just leave the useless and idiotic line out.
One of the big debates with the ODF work was around documents in the Office format needed to be preserved, and the document storage format needs to be an open standard not owned by a single vendor. The point being the content of the documents belonged to the authors and not the software company. So who really owns content published in PDF is Adobe can pull a stunt like this? I just looked on the Adobe web site and still no denial about any part of the news story with Microsoft.
I have just purchased the new Word Perfect X3 (13) and if has PDF. Priced at $99.00 with free shipping, dictionary, and free t-shirt I figure I'm saving about $200.00 off MS Word suite.
Dale May
For peats sake why does Adobe want to take a shot at microsoft. Microsoft wants to do something good for the consumer and adobe throws a hissie fit. What adobe gave free to so many others now the want to haggle with the big guy maybe that is it take a shot at the big guy or is it just about MONEY.
I understand that microsoft has been labeled as the "Big bad giant of the industry". Adobe has to realize that their actions are hurting the people not just microsoft. This wont help in the future when software makers want microsoft to free up some of their technology.
It appears as though Adobe is not interseted in the consumer or working with microsoft.
Well well well now that the big guy (Microsoft)wants to give something for free Adobe puts the skids to it. Or is it all just a ploy to get some more press? Adobe has been free to many many Operating systems why all of a sudden is microsoft off limits?
To tell the truth, after reading the WSJ and a few other articles this morning, I was totally disgusted to learn that Office 2007 will be losing its PDF functionality. Nothing could be more frustrating to Office users as it is a long awaited and much anticipated.
Look, if you want to talk out of both sides of your mouth, go into politics.
Otherwise get your story straight. This jacking around of who can and can't
use PDF code is foolishness. Everyone and their dog wants to be able to
save to PDF from Microsoft products. Keep PDF code open and available to
anyone who wants to use it.
So which way is it going to be...? On the one hand you brag about how accessable .PDF's are.... on the other hand, you are making it hard for Microsoft consumers to use... once again, consumers last.