There are 2 more free packages! GhostWord and GS4Word. Both create PDFs reasonably well, but on my machine GhostWord doesn't export bookmarks and GS4Word doesn't export hyperlinks. Seems that you can't have everything after all. That's still better than a RedMon/PDFCreator/whatever solution. GS4Word is lincensed under the GPL. Both solutions also support Excel and Powerpoint and create the necessary links in presentations and sheets...
Still, I don't know about OpenOffice, but the biggest problem with the GhostScript ps2pdf - solution is that it doesn't support pdfmark out of the box. pdfmark is what makes the bookmark menu, clickable hyperlinks and forms in PDFs possible. Does that work reasonably in OpenOffice?
I'd guess that most people buy Acrobat for the sole reason that they need to create the bookmark outline.
There, of course, is no reason that you shouldn't be allowed to make money of your invention. The real problem is the anti-competitive nature of the software patent. IBM holds a patent on a "list of words connected to business objects" which is basically every application including Excel, Word's "Font"-list or your browser's location bar.
Adobe has a patent on "floating palettes" for their toolbars. Macromedia has a patent on tabs.
If there was a consensus on how these patents would be handled, I could imagine a software patent law so inventions like RSA can be protected, but the way it is now, we make big software companies follow the RIAA's footsteps.
Imagine your a shareware developer and have a new and cool application. You make money of it, but suddenly Adobe can't sell its special Photoshop filter package anymore, because you do everything for $39.99. Suddenly, Adobe comes along and sues you, because they have a patent on buttons with grey borders. Even if they don't win, you're so broke you can't afford bread.
Imagine your a independant developer. You have a great new encryption algorithm and patent it. So you obiously have to publish it. It gets scrutinized by the cryptographic community and is found secure and ultra-fast. IBM implements it as part of its new java-crypto-webservice-thingy. You sue, because the patent grants you the right to license payments. Thing is... you have to sue in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Luxenburg, the Swiss, Spain... you get the idea. IBM eventually settles to patent your idea in the US. Suddenly you're so broke, you can't afford bread.
Anyone remember the american inventor of the "Sony" walkman? No? well, I thought so. He's so broke he can't afford bread. Sony's still making billions of his patent, which he couldn't enforce.
This system is so broken, there is no way you can fix it gradually. We're better off without allowing software patents for the moment. Really.
But the biggest joke hasn't been mentioned yet. The initiative comes from the UK and might work with the UK's laws. In Germany, if you are the managing director of a company with limited liability (AG or GmbH), you're not allowed to knowingly engage in any illegal activity. If you do so, you loose the protection of the law and therefor can be hold liable with everything you own. The problem: knowingly infringing on a patent is illegal in Germany. Therefor, if IBM sends me a cease and desist letter, claiming that I MIGHT infringe on one of their 3600 patents from last year, I must immediatly stop selling all potentially infringing products. If I don't do that, I might loose all my private belongings to satisfy IBM's damage claims... even though I have a registered company with "limited liability"...talk about anti-competitive.
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There are 2 more free packages! GhostWord and GS4Word. Both create PDFs reasonably well, but on my machine GhostWord doesn't export bookmarks and GS4Word doesn't export hyperlinks. Seems that you can't have everything after all. That's still better than a RedMon/PDFCreator/whatever solution. GS4Word is lincensed under the GPL. Both solutions also support Excel and Powerpoint and create the necessary links in presentations and sheets...
Still, I don't know about OpenOffice, but the biggest problem with the GhostScript ps2pdf - solution is that it doesn't support pdfmark out of the box. pdfmark is what makes the bookmark menu, clickable hyperlinks and forms in PDFs possible. Does that work reasonably in OpenOffice?
I'd guess that most people buy Acrobat for the sole reason that they need to create the bookmark outline.
There, of course, is no reason that you shouldn't be allowed to make money of your invention. The real problem is the anti-competitive nature of the software patent. IBM holds a patent on a "list of words connected to business objects" which is basically every application including Excel, Word's "Font"-list or your browser's location bar.
Adobe has a patent on "floating palettes" for their toolbars. Macromedia has a patent on tabs.
If there was a consensus on how these patents would be handled, I could imagine a software patent law so inventions like RSA can be protected, but the way it is now, we make big software companies follow the RIAA's footsteps.
Imagine your a shareware developer and have a new and cool application. You make money of it, but suddenly Adobe can't sell its special Photoshop filter package anymore, because you do everything for $39.99. Suddenly, Adobe comes along and sues you, because they have a patent on buttons with grey borders. Even if they don't win, you're so broke you can't afford bread.
Imagine your a independant developer. You have a great new encryption algorithm and patent it. So you obiously have to publish it. It gets scrutinized by the cryptographic community and is found secure and ultra-fast. IBM implements it as part of its new java-crypto-webservice-thingy. You sue, because the patent grants you the right to license payments. Thing is... you have to sue in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Luxenburg, the Swiss, Spain... you get the idea. IBM eventually settles to patent your idea in the US. Suddenly you're so broke, you can't afford bread.
Anyone remember the american inventor of the "Sony" walkman? No? well, I thought so. He's so broke he can't afford bread. Sony's still making billions of his patent, which he couldn't enforce.
This system is so broken, there is no way you can fix it gradually. We're better off without allowing software patents for the moment. Really.
But the biggest joke hasn't been mentioned yet. The initiative comes from the UK and might work with the UK's laws. In Germany, if you are the managing director of a company with limited liability (AG or GmbH), you're not allowed to knowingly engage in any illegal activity. If you do so, you loose the protection of the law and therefor can be hold liable with everything you own. The problem: knowingly infringing on a patent is illegal in Germany. Therefor, if IBM sends me a cease and desist letter, claiming that I MIGHT infringe on one of their 3600 patents from last year, I must immediatly stop selling all potentially infringing products. If I don't do that, I might loose all my private belongings to satisfy IBM's damage claims... even though I have a registered company with "limited liability"...talk about anti-competitive.
The "Deutsche Telekom" has at least an European trademark on 100% magenta. They have successfully sued multiple websites for trademark infringement.