Legal issues around PDF support

re: Legal issues around PDF support

GalacticJello — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:50:54 GMT

I can understand why Adobe does not want the funtionality in Office, as it will effectively eliminate the need for purchasing Acrobat. Granted, they look the other way in other products, because their market share is so small.

Introduce the economies of scale and the huge market share of Office, and you can quickly figure out that adding this functionality to Office would effectively kill off an important revenue stream for Adobe. I am not saying it is right to act this way, and I would assume their anti-trust suit (if they are stupid enough to file it) will fail because they do allow other products to do the same thing.

They should have strengthened their existing partnership with Microsoft when they got a whiff of XPS and Open XML rather than hit the mattresses. I am predicting Adobe goes into a tailspin starting in Q4 of 2007, and will survive as only a fraction of the company that it is now.

Adobe Threatens Microsoft With Lawsuit

It's Way Too Early For This — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:27:48 GMT

Adobe Systems is said to be ready to take Microsoft to antitrust court in Europe. The pair have been squabbling over Microsoft's export-to-PDF capability that was set to be part of Office 2007 and now is being removed from the product, according to the

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Mike — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:43:29 GMT

"This is also surprising to me given that certain governments have viewed PDF as being more open than Open XML, yet Open XML is now proceeding through Ecma"

Yeahhhhhhh. You mean ECMA is really a standards org? It does not shock you that you can go there, and have a proprietary schema proposed by a single vendor be called a standard. And, big surprise, your implementation becomes the de facto reference. How great is that?

This coming standard is fully paid for. Don't spin it Mr politician.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Mike — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:51:39 GMT

It should be added, in regards to PDF itself, that this move is a relief for small PDF-related ISVs out there, who had their breakfast eaten by Microsoft in the name of "improving customer experience with MS Office".

You were killing this market, not adding value to it.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Rosyna — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:58:10 GMT

See, I don't understand this at all. According to section 1.5 of the Adobe PDF 1.6 reference (http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/pdf/PDFReference16.pdf) everyone is granted copyright access to include PDF support in their product assuming it conforms to some guidelines.

"Adobe will enforce its copyright. Adobe’s intention is to maintain the integrity of the Portable Document Format standard. This enables the public to distinguish between the Portable Document Format and other interchange formats for electronic documents. However, Adobe desires to promote the use of the Portable Document Format for information interchange among diverse products and applications. Accordingly, Adobe gives anyone copyright permission, subject to the conditions stated below, to: "

(some conditions snipped)

"•Prepare files whose content conforms to the Portable Document Format
•Write drivers and applications that produce output represented in the Portable Document Format

•Anyone who uses the copyrighted list of data structures and operators, as stated above, must include an appropriate copyright notice. "

So the only reason I'd imagine Adobe caring is if Office didn't conform to one of these. Either it didn't maintain the integrity of PDF, possibly because Adobe felt it did not follow the PDF spec, or some other reason relating to the files not actually "being PDF". Or maybe there was no required copyright notice.

Adobe: Remove PDF Support in Office 2007

The Insider — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:58:28 GMT

Brian Jones talks about Adobe's position against including built in PDF support into Office 2007 forcing...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

James — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:01:06 GMT

Mike's comments recall the complaints by ISVs that Microsoft was killing the market for DOS memory managers by releasing Windows 95, an OS with a flat 32-bit memory model.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

xml — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:04:41 GMT

dont remove pdf support from office, i seriously doubt adobe can win that suit in any court.

dont remove features just because other people make money from selling products that do the same thing.

that was one of the biggfest features of office 2007 and after all interoperability (with a standard format) can't be punished!

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Mike — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:12:28 GMT

If anyone is willing to read FUD-free information on the issue, there is this blog post here : http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/015754.html
instead of this blog.

Adobe (the debbil) giving MS grief

Rod Trent at myITforum.com — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:13:00 GMT

Brian Jones indicates that Adobe is a little upset that Microsoft *was* going to add PDF support in Office...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Mike — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:15:23 GMT

"Mike's comments recall the complaints by ISVs that Microsoft was killing the market for DOS memory managers by releasing Windows 95, an OS with a flat 32-bit memory model."

Definitely no. Microsoft's decade-late move to PDF to "improve the customer experience" is only the latest move aimed to freeze PDF once for all.

This has ramifications to many of the other proprietary file formats (such as XPS).

And providing PDF for free in MS Office was indeed a ISV killer. I don't know how your DOS thing compares to it : PDF will still be around ten years from now.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

G.T. — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:23:10 GMT

Having PDF is nice, but removing it is also not a big deal for me.

I love open formats that are easy to manage and use, and PDF is not one of them.

Just introduce an xml paper viewer on Windows, and another one for Linux and Mac, and make the viewers open source, or just a Windows viewer that is open source, people will modify it for whatever they want.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

kjopc — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:48:55 GMT

Stupid Adobe is just going to drive everyone to the XPS standard by being a pain.

If you must, ship the PDF capabilityas a separate download and then make the code open source - or better yet, managed code.

That would really put Adobe in a funk.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

John C. Welch — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:53:46 GMT

You know, there's more to this than meets the eye, since Apple has offered PDF generation *for free* for EVERY application on OS X, and with Mac OS X 10.3, added the ability to natively convert Postscript to PDF in their preview application.

Ghostscript and any number of other utilities have offered free PDF generation alll over the place for quite a few years now.

So obviously, offering PDF generation for free is not the problem, that's happeneing everywhere.

Methinks there are some points not being publicized.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

John C. Welch — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:54:31 GMT

re: Legal issues around PDF support

William — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:57:05 GMT

A free-add on is certainly better than nothing, if this is legally possible. I dont like using Acrobat - thier plug in for office is awful - on the 'old' ui, it didnt keep its "memory" on the toolbar location for a start.

I love the way its all built in - its also fast in my experience in Office directly.

The problem with a free add-on is that it cuts out people like my parents, who only just about understnad the concept of "save", and not going to start going onto websites and downloading anything extra.

I'm certain all this is all about the bigger picture of Metro and other inroads (like EXpression products) microsoft is making on Adobe terrotory.

Brian Jones Blog about PDF in Office

Andy Simonds XPS and D2 Blog — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:59:50 GMT

Brian just posted an entry about the decision to remove PDF support from Office.
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/02/613702.asp...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

BrianJones — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:03:46 GMT

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I can tell that a lot of people are as confused by this as I am.

- G.T.
There are still a number of people out there that really rely on PDF as a way of publishing and sharing content, so it's actually a pretty big deal for them (that's why the initial announcement was received so well).

- kjopc
I'm not sure yet what the technical details are for how the support will be seperated out. If you've used Beta 2, you've probably seen that it's just baked in directly. I don't think seperating it out will involve an entire rewrite, but instead will move things around a bit.

- Mike
You always bring such a positive energy to these discussions. :-)
I'm now a lying, spinning, FUDing politician? I hope we get a chance to meet sometime, because you'd see I'm far from being a politician. How do you accuse me of FUD, and then make statements like you're latest about this being a "move aimed to freeze PDF once for all."

Do you know what FUD means? Where in any of my posts am I trying to spread fear, uncertainty, or doubt? I'm being quite clear on exactly what we're doing and why we've done it. It's funny how the folks most quick to accuse people of spreading FUD are usually the ones spreading it themselves.

- XML
I wish we didn't have to do this and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way you do. This really is extremely frustrating, as we really were at a point where we had a great story for people around sharing content. We had a new open default format that anyone could implement, and we had a well established publishing format that there was widespread support for. Unfortunately now that publishing format is only going to be available through a seperate download.

- John C. Welch
Hi John, that's exactly my point. There are a whole host of applications out there that offer free PDF output. That's why this is so frustrating. We aren't trying to do anything different from anyone else. If you've used Beta 2, you've probably seen that the PDF output is actually really great too. We actually used it to publish the latest draft of the Ecma Open XML format last month (with cross references and everything). I loved it.

- William
I agree that the free add-on does at least still give folks the ability to get at the functionality. It's just frustrating that everyone has to go through that extra hassle.

-Brian

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Patrick Schmid — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:09:02 GMT

I can only shake my head. The PDF support Adobe offers for Office is crappy, doesn't work with 2007 at all (even crashes Outlook all the time) and there is no news from Adobe on providing a fix for that.
How open is XPS? Adobe might have just killed PDF as a universal format for storing documents, because if it can force Microsoft to remove this feature (but offer it as a separate download), I wouldn't invest any money into PDF as archival format.
As to the MS Office XML formats and their submission to Ecma: MS plans to submit it to ISO afterwards and quite frankly, there is no question that ISO is THE standards body.

Unbelievable...Adobe just killed PDF...

Patrick

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Rosyna — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:12:05 GMT

I think the FUD comment would be someone getting the impression that Adobe will sue people that try to implement PDF. Whereas the article only says Microsoft expects Adobe to sue (which could just be because Microsoft would sue if the arrangement was reversed).

pschmid.net - Patrick Schmid: Putting You & I back into Office 2007’s UI - Sad day;

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:16:47 GMT

PingBack from http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/06/02/16

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Donald Burnett — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:29:53 GMT

I think this sounds like ridiculous grandstanding on Adobe's part. If we look to the Apple OS which already has this kinda feature built into the OS, why shouldn't office have this kinda feature. Also if Open Office can write PDFs (www.openoffice.org) why didn't Adobe go after them to get the feature removed.

Simply put, I'd think Adobe would want this feature in and they could make tons of money on support products. The reality of this is most people who use PDFs don't buy acrobat in the first place. It's very popular to install both Open Office for windows with Office and just transfer the document files and write the PDFs that way or use a 3rd party "compatible" PDF creator. In fact I see one at CompUSA that is much cheaper than Acrobat that does what most people want anyway. If you need the extra acrobat features you buy Acrobat.

I think Adobe is trying to put the squeeze on Microsoft rather unfairly. Is it because of their relationship with Apple? Is it maybe that Microsoft is also bringing out XML paper (XPS) support or is it that Windows Presentation Foundation technologies and the Microsoft Expression product line is a threat to their graphics/html/flash line.

I think Adobe should get with the program and actually do something they haven't seem to do with upgrades in a while, give us some new innovation and features beyond complaining about something that is baseline and people use and work on everyday. There is still plenty of money to be made off of PDF and more people would use it if it were built-in and made a "standard" format..

Personally this whole issue has just made me look at XML paper and Microsoft's XPS format. Maybe that's what they wanted us to do in the first place?? If they did that's a smart strategy..

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Anonymous Coward — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:31:24 GMT

Brian,

As the Court of Appeals reminded you guys in a previous Microsoft antitrust case, "Intellectual property rights do not confer a privilege to violate the antitrust laws." United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34, 63 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (quoting In re Indep. Serv. Orgs. Antitrust Litig., 203 F.3d 1322, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2000)).

I agree that Microsoft's position (at least based on what we know from its general counsel) is sympathetic, but you are confusing the issue when you say that this bears on PDF's status as a standard that can be implemented royalty-free. (Adobe has offered royalty-free licenses to its copyrights and patents bearing on PDF; see http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/adobe-ipr-draft-zilles-pdf.txt.)

HTML was an "open standard" too, but this didn't stop Microsoft from getting in hot water over allegations that it illegally tied its HTML reader to its operating system, or that it illegally attempted to monopolize the market for HTML readers.

Microsoft ultimately beat the rap on the Web-browser charges last time, and maybe you'll beat the rap in the ongoing Novell case (over allegations of illegal monopolization of the office applications market) this time too.

But just because a standard is open (like ASCII, or PDF, or HTML) doesn't confer a privilege to violate the antitrust laws, which still govern tying and monopolization of implementations of the standard. Maybe it's immoral that monopolists have to play by different rules, but that's the way it goes. It doesn't have anything to do with the openness of the underlying standards.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Mike — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:35:28 GMT

Brian,

You'd be surprised how much down-to-earth I am. Thing is, I live in file formats all day long, so your continual silence over the little details (such as the new XML being actually OLE sometimes) is going to haunt you. Now, and I intend to be posting my views.

Look, Microsoft is not a normal player. Direct support for PDF in MS Office is a weapon that freezes the PDF specs forever, regardless of what Adobe plans to do with it. PDF is not yours, it's not a matter of being open or not, and you know that's a big deal when it comes to a software that could be installed on so many computers. It's a big deal for PDF-related ISVs too.

But even the name of those file formats. I'm sorry to say but you call it "open xml". I don't think that's the name of the file format sent to ECMA.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Patrick Schmid — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:18:27 GMT

Brian,

MS should make sure that XPS is as open as the MS Office XML formats and that it comes with the same covenant not to sue.
In my view, PDF is dead as free & open format for any purposes, especially archival ones. Adobe violated the trust everyone placed in them to be good stewards of the PDF format with this move. Bad timing on their part, especially when Microsoft has a replacement format ready...

Patrick

re: Legal issues around PDF support

TAG — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:23:37 GMT

IMHO, Adobe want different thing - they want SaveAsPDF to be pluggable !

If Microsoft will put SaveAsPDF inside core binaries without way to replace them - Adobe will be out of bussiness.
But if Microsoft will put PDF support as plugin - Adobe can figure out how to plug their own version instead of Microsoft one.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Escamillo — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:30:08 GMT

@xml:
"dont remove pdf support from office, i seriously doubt adobe can win that suit in any court. "

Um, the venue in which Adobe is threatening to sue is the European courts. The EU hates Microsoft with a passion, so Adobe could very well win there, despite the fact that this case is a bunch of crap.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Gabe — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:34:32 GMT

Mike, how does Office support for PDF "freeze the specs forever"? Doesn't ISO 19005-1 already "freeze" the specs forever?

If everybody had their way, Microsoft would not be able to ship any file formats. Any open formats MS implements are a weapon against their creators, while any formats MS creates are designed to thwart competitors.

BTW, the name of the ECMA standard is "Office Open XML File Formats Standard", but Open XML seems like a good abbreviation.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Lathan Montgomery — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:35:47 GMT

The problem isn't with Office creating plain PDF files, it is if they are implementing all the advanced features like bookmarks, clickable links and embeded sound or 3d graphics. Flat non interactive PDF generation is allowed by Adobe for everyone. Advanced features like editing is not. Think of the PDF engine as you would a regular printer. If you can do it with a hard copy it is allowed for free to be done as a PDF.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Escamillo — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:45:08 GMT

Mike, your so-called "FUD-free" analysis at http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/015754.html is one of the most slanted articles I've read in a loooong time. If by "FUD-free" you meant "objective", you missed the mark, badly.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Phil — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:56:45 GMT

I don't work for MS ... so I can say the following: Acrobat is poorly architected/implemented product.

I have numerous licenses since Acrobat 1.0 to the full version ... and I have seen it continue to grow as bloatware. It hogs memory. It runs as a background OLE server. It periodically hangs other applications. It continually tries to upgrade itself and fails because I don't happen to carry around the original CD-rom whereever I may go. It's scripting model is bizarre.

But, PDF as a locked format to distribute documents is excellent. The "skinnier" Acrobat Reader for the most part has been excellent. Adobe's retail prices are shocking compared to Microsoft's and others.

The PDF format debate needs to be separated from the use of Acrobat Standard/Pro as the means by which to generate PDF.

I've been programming since pre-Windows 1.0. Windows has evolved from a fancy extended memory manager with graphical UI tricks to a secure (separate argument folks) OS. But because of the legacy nature of needing to not break the "customers" existing applications that were written to significantly different security and data interopability standards (in some cases 20 years ago) ... Microsoft ends up either in the situation where they cursed if they don't or accused of violating their monopoly position if they do.

Is it possible to shed a tear for MS for the tough position that they find themselves in ... that what is the "right" thing to do for the user/customer/enterprise ... is not the right thing to do legally?

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Phil — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:57:31 GMT

Adbobe Picks a File-Format Fight

Doug Mahugh — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:04:15 GMT

The last two weeks have seen a big increase in the amount of press coverage and blog discussions of file-format...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Escamillo — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:04:21 GMT

@Mike:
"Thing is, I live in file formats all day long, so your continual silence over the little details (such as the new XML being actually OLE sometimes) is going to haunt you."

Mike, Brian already addressed that here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/05/26/607630.aspx#608191
from which I will quote:
"Mike, if the file is password protected, then the password is used to encrypt the entire ZIP package, and the result of that encryption is just stored in an iStorage (which is a documented container format). If you have the password, then you can simply unencrypt it, and you're back to a ZIP package with XML again. If you don't have the password, than of course you can't unencrypt it. If you don't want to encrypt the XML, then don't password protect it. That's pretty straightforward."

So, there has been no "silence" regarding this, now will you give it a rest?

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Johan — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:06:01 GMT

Funny how you act so surprised... When you integrate PDF capabilities in MS office you effectively wipe Adobe off the market. I think it is only normal that they won't accept this without MS paying for PDF support. They would be stupid if they would!

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Marco — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:09:11 GMT

@Escamillo:
"The EU hates Microsoft with a passion, so Adobe could very well win there"

I doubt it. Adobe may have copyright on the PDF specs, and it may have patents for implementing viewers and the like, but I don't see how they can legally keep anyone from exporting to PDF. Microsoft least of all.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Andrew — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:09:53 GMT

Mr. Montgomery, I'm afraid that is not the case, at least not entirely. We have been using a third-party product called ActivePDF for years now. This product can batch-produce PDFs from Office documents, including cross-reference/TOC links, TOC-to-bookmarks, etc.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Rafa® — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:12:51 GMT

Man, this is insane...
Reporting Services from Microsoft already have the native option of exporting Reports into PDF format... There's no sense in trying to block this behavior in Office natively, wich is a very welcome feature!

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Jon Peltier — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:39:13 GMT

I can't get too worked up one way or the other. I use PrimoPDF to make PDF files from any application (including Office), and there are lots of other free, reliable, full-featured, third-party programs out there that do the same thing.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Messenia — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:30:36 GMT

I think I would be more sympathetic with Adobe if the company had ever produce a problem-free add-in for Office. I've paid for each of the last three versions of Acrobat and the Office add-ins have always been troublesome. Other vendors are able to produce well-managed add-ins, why can't Adobe? And if they can't/won't do it themselves, they should stop punishing their customers and let Microsoft do it.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Kaushik — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:51:03 GMT

Aw! Come on, its nothing but Adobe getting too possessive of their stuff, which they'd like to keep "Open", which in their definition is bewilderingly anyone but Microsoft.

Its not like they are encouraging the PDF-ecosystem as some folks comment, they have been squeezing the flexibility for tens of ISVs from adding plug-ins to the Adobe products.

Talking about Revenue Lost from MS Office exporting to PDF, read this (less than 2 month article, by Bruce Chizen himself):

Interview with Wharton http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1399,

Chizen clearly calls out:
Knowledge@Wharton: One of the other things Microsoft has announced is the ability to save as PDF in Office 12. This means that, once that happens, non-Adobe technologies are creating PDF in MacOS X, in StarOffice, and on Windows in Office [applications]. Isn't this a challenge to one of your major revenue streams?
Chizen: Maybe. But we don't think so. First of all, it's somewhat flattering that Microsoft has validated a document format that is not theirs, but one that is Adobe's -- which suggests that their customers were demanding that it do so.
We had anticipated for many years that the revenue we achieve around PDF creation would, at some point in time, go away. It's an open standard! There are many clones out in the marketplace today that create PDF and compete with Acrobat.
What we have done over the last five years is added functionality beyond PDF creation in our product line-up. If you look at Acrobat today it is much more than just simple PDF creation. In fact, we have a product, called Acrobat Elements, that just does PDF creation, and it represents a relatively tiny piece of our overall revenue -- less than one percent. Most customers choose to buy the more feature-rich products, Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro, which do annotations, digital signatures, web capture [and so on]. And many customers are buying LiveCycle, the server products for mission-critical workflows. That suggests to me that even though PDF creation will become free with products like Microsoft Office, our revenue streams will continue on.
In fact, with more PDFs being created from Microsoft Office, it gives us an opportunity to take those PDFs and do more with them, like building mission-critical workflows around them.

Well, it sure seems like their strategy with PDF creation, Revenue generation, "Open"ess of the file format, Support of the PDF ecosystem is changing substantially....

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Steve Atty — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:17:23 GMT

The problem is that all we have to go on is two articles in the press, and a couple of blogs.

Have Adobe said they WILL sue? All I've seen is articles where Microsoft say they are worried Adobe will sue.

Also as Brian works for Microsoft (specifically on Office) I'm amazed at how vague he apparently is on the subject.

Why not wait until we have BOTH sides of the story before getting the knives out?

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Craig Ringer — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:21:59 GMT

This really is rather odd. Adobe haven't kicked up a fuss about Mac OS X, OpenOffice, GhostScript (or win32 packaged "easy PDF creator" versions like PDFCreator - pdfcreator.sf.net), or any of the numerous pdf libraries out there.

I could understand if their complaint was that they wanted to be able to supplement/extend/replace the shipped PDF output facilities of Office. I know Office's PDF export will be inadequate for quite a few uses - at least as of the last samples and documentation I've seen - so I'd like Adobe to be able to replace it too. That said, I doubt anything stops them setting up their own toolbar and menu entries *as* *well*, so I can't really see what all the fuss is about.

If they're complaining about the addition of the feature at all, that's just weird. They shouldn't have released the PDF spec under the flexible terms they did if they want to excersise this level of control over who implements it and how. How do they justify this? Who will they come after next? PDF isn't a true open standard - in that it's still controlled solely by Adobe - but it's darn close, and I really don't undersand why Adobe are doing this.

Adobe's low-end PDF creation tool for Office really isn't very interesting. Their noteworthy products in this space - especially Acrobat Professional - aren't even remotely threatened by the new functionality. Surely they should be happy about MS encouraging even adoption of the PDF format?

Unless there's something more to this that we're not hearing, Adobe's actions really don't make much sense. Not that that's a new or surprising experience.

Speaking of PDF, is there anywhere to send feedback about the PDF export feature as it relates to Publisher? Last time I saw anything about it, it was hopelessly inadequate for even simple pre-press targets and there was no way for a printer / agency to supply a preset for the user to use when generating the PDF. I'd be happy to outline the sorts of things printers and agencies would need to turn Publisher from most-hated program of all time to a recommended tool for their low end customers - if someone will be interested in hearing it. Feel free to e-mail me if you're interested.

--
Craig Ringer
craig at postnewspapers dot com dot au

re: Legal issues around PDF support

BrianJones — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:27:15 GMT

Hey Steve,
I'm on the the product development side and we don't really get too involved in the legal side of things like this. I focus more on the technology and customer needs. I just have a base level of knowledge on the legal side of things and if you read the articles that are out there you'll know just about as much as I know:

http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-6079320.html

http://news.com.com/Office%2C+Vista+changed+in+wake+of+Adobe+threat/2100-1012_3-6079519.html?tag=nefd.lede

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1971047,00.asp

-Brian

XPS, PDF and Adobe

Andy Simonds XPS and D2 Blog — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:01:40 GMT

So it is certainly an interesting news day today. &nbsp;For those interested in the world of PDF and...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

MikeB — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:05:28 GMT

I personally don't use the PDF format for anything so this decision won't effect me at all. However, I am really confused by this. As others have said, Adobe considers the PDF format, OPEN. They have not pursued Sun, Apple or anyone else for including a "save as PDF" option in their products. Why would they have a problem with the most popular desktop productivity suite supporting their format!?

How does MS supporting PDF in Word put Adobe out of business, but OpenOffice supporting PDF does not?

There are plenty of FREE tools that one can generate PDF files from any other format. Adobe seems to have survived in spite of them.

I'm confounded.

"Save As PDF" Not In The Box After All

Microsoft Excel 2007 (nee Excel 12) — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:06:43 GMT

A few months back, I wrote a post about how Excel 2007 will enable customers to save their work as a...

Technology News » Blog Archive » Microsoft to Adobe: Let’s Make a Deal

Technology News » Blog Archive » Microsoft to Adobe: Let’s Make a Deal — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:30:25 GMT

PingBack from http://tech.t10n.net/?p=39

re: Legal issues around PDF support

zzz — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:34:37 GMT

What's the big deal here about exporting to PDF? Why not export to XML format instead and if the 0.001% of users with Mac need PDF they can convert it.

Adobe, PDF, Microsoft, and Office

Steven Smith — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 02:39:59 GMT

Office 2007 won&rsquo;t include Save As PDF by default, but you can still get it as&nbsp;a free download.&nbsp;...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Chris_Pratley — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 03:36:34 GMT

Craig, if you want to give feedback on PDF output from Publisher, you can go to JeffBell's blog on exactly that topic: http://blogs.msdn.com/jeff%5Fbell/

He hasn't posted in awhile but he is listening!

re: Legal issues around PDF support

AC — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 03:53:21 GMT

What Adobe is doing is disgraceful and I'd like to see you guys battle them over this. If it's a truly open format then they shouldn't have any hold on you.

"This is also surprising to me given that certain governments have viewed PDF as being more open than Open XML, yet Open XML is now proceeding through Ecma and there is a clear commitment from Microsoft that it will not sue anyone for using the formats."

And here's where you lose my support. Just because you promise not to sue someone doesn't make your format any more open. If someone writes a program to read and write it they would still be breaking the law. Who cares if Microsoft the company won't sue them. There are two bigger issues:
1. Who wants to develop and distribute illegal programs?
2. Who gives a guarantee that the government won't go after them (whether on Microsoft's behalf or not)?

Your pledge not to sue is worthless to people who respect the law. To the lawless it wouln't have mattered anyway.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

BrianJones — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 04:34:25 GMT

- AC
This is actually a common approach taken when a company has IP behind a format, but wants to make it clear that they will not enforce their IP. It's the same thing that Sun did with the OpenDocument format.

It doesn't mean people are doing things that are illegal. It means that they can use the formats and we will not enforce any IP behind the format. I don't believe anyone was concerned they would be breaking the law, the concern from some folks was that we had IP behind the formats and we would enforce that IP if people tried to use them. We created the convenant not to sue in order to give people a legal commitment on our part that we won't do that.

-Brian

re: Legal issues around PDF support

BrianJones — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 04:39:15 GMT

I've talked a bunch about how Office is a platform, and we fully expect people to build on top of it. This applies to the fixed format support as well. The fixed format publishing support (PDF & XPS) was completely pluggable, so that anyone else could come along and plug into it with their own solution/format. There is an article up here describing how you could do it: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/ms406051(office.12).aspx

-Brian

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Sahil Malik — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 04:49:44 GMT

Having heard this, I am going to make a point to promulgate the XPS format over PDF with whomever I work.

This is bludy ridiculous.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Lathan Montgomery — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 05:06:02 GMT

Andrew, At last chek ActivePDF is a licensed product that doesn't directly compete with Acrobat. It is primarily designed as a server workflow solution and not a desktop app. They are also a 3rd party licensee of Adobe. Also look at the prices and the license cost for Active PDF and you will quickly see it is not a desktop app like office.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

anonymous — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 05:18:21 GMT

Ironic really. Sounds like something Microsoft often does to other vendors.

Adobe again

James O'Neill's blog — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 05:36:42 GMT

At the community leaders day I was telling one of the attendees that my sister was a Professor of computer...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Merrick — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 05:49:20 GMT

Quoting:

"This really is one of those cases where you just have to shake your head... ...It’s amazing that [Adobe] would go back on the openness pledge."

Openess???? As a representative of Microsoft who are you to speak on this subject? Your company is well known for it's heavy handed tactics dealing with competitors and for shackling Windows user's with licenses, serial numbers, install CD's, online validation, etc.

You'll find no sympathy here.

Adobe wants you to produce PDF freely, unless you're Microsoft

Jeremy Zawodny's blog — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 07:53:27 GMT

It seems that the Office team was planning to have the ability to produce PDF documents natively, just like one can in OpenOffice and other suites. However, it seems that won't happen now. The problem? It looks like Adobe wanted us to charge our customers

re: Legal issues around PDF support

A.A. — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 08:01:30 GMT

At least I can create PDF's natively on my Mac mini

The Tech Journal » Will Adobe Take Its Microsoft Malcontent to the Courtroom?

The Tech Journal » Will Adobe Take Its Microsoft Malcontent to the Courtroom? — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 08:13:15 GMT

PingBack from http://rjdohnert.wordpress.com/2006/06/03/will-adobe-take-its-microsoft-malcontent-to-the-courtroom/

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Hammad Sharif — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 08:53:33 GMT

I can't seem to understand why Adobe will beheive like that. This takes all the spirit away from PDF format as an open format. If other products can use PDF, Microsoft Office should be seen as a the most successful evidence of PDF openness.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

PatriotB — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 08:59:15 GMT

Sounds to me like Adobe's the one abusing *their* monopoly.

One could find that Adobe has a monopoly in the market for "software technologies to produce electronic fixed documents." Microsoft is entering that market by providing a PDF writer in Office. However Adobe is trying to price fix in that market, trying to make Microsoft charge extra for that technology. That sounds pretty illegal to me.

But wait, I hear you cry, Acrobat "invented" the aforementioned "market". So? Microsoft essentially invented the "market for x86 compatible operating systems" but that didn't stop them from being branded a monopoly.

But wait, I hear you cry, there are plenty of alternatives to Acrobat for creating PDFs. So? There are plenty of alternatives to Windows as well, but that didn't seem to matter to the courts.

Looks like Adobe could find out what it's like to be branded an illegal monopolist.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Fred — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 09:40:10 GMT

Microsoft is the VERY LAST company that should be complaining about open standards or openness in general.
* Java was subverted and essentially ruined by Microsoft because it had potential to threaten Windows.
* HTML is no longer a standard open language because IE has its own version.
* Windows API's have historically been released to 3d party application developers AFTER Microsoft has developed their own applications using those APIs.
* They sued the makers of the Lindows operating system because the name sounded too much like Windows.
* Finally, Microsoft was secretly financing the SCO copyright lawsuits which threatened companies who used Linux.
Microsoft is in no position to criticize another company's openness.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Biff — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:21:26 GMT

Please stay tuned while this blog is experiencing temporary infestation by Slashbots.

PatriotB: nice one <g>

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Craig Ringer — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:54:37 GMT

zzz: I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. PDF is much more than a format used on Macs. It's used extremely heavily in document archival, in prepress and printing, in electronic publishing, and LOTS of other areas.

PDF is a very useful format because it's an extensible self-contained representation of a document's structure and visual appearance that's reliable, space efficient, and retains vector, raster, and text contents. It's also, handily, very portable thanks to the variety of platforms Adobe Reader exists for, the free PDF reader tools that exist, and the large variety of other tools for PDF.

Writing it off as something that is just for mac users, and suggesting that "XML" be exported instead, really doesn't make much sense.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Biff — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 11:07:52 GMT

"PDF is a very useful format because it's an extensible self-contained representation of a document's structure and visual appearance" -- Craig Ringer

Wrong - B but not A. PDF is a representation of visual appearance, which [provided with good will and extra care on the publisher’s side] *may* preserve some vague idea of the original document’s structure. Failing that it is merely a structured collection of letters, lines and images with rare inclusions of advanced content such as JavaScript.

I say boycott Adobe...

Spyware Sucks — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 11:38:51 GMT

Y'know, this stuff really makes me mad sometimes.
Microsoft to pull PDF, XPS support from Office 2007...

PDF support in Office 2007: maybe not?

STEFANO DEMILIANI WeBlog — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:16:09 GMT

Adobe, give yer head a shake

Fear and Loathing — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:46:01 GMT

I really don&rsquo;t want to be Bill Gates.
Yeah, you heard right.
Even with a trillion dollars in...

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Erik 1021 — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:52:44 GMT

Well, Microsoft is pitching a story and many (ibcluding the WSJ) are more or less taking MS at its word. But I wonder (with Rosyna in the June 02, 2006 11:58 AM comment above), if MS is conforming to Adobe's terms of use (like Corel, Apple, etc. do), then on what basis could Adobe win a legal action? It seems likely that MS is not conforming, and Adobe is responding reasonably by protecting its proprietary PDF standard against MS's infringements.

If MS actually is conforming to Adobe's terms of use, then it has no basis to fear retaining its PDF support.

If MS is modifying the PDF format, its output may not interface reliably with all the other PDF-enabled software in existence and Adobe has a duty to see that MS desist from this course of action.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Andrew — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:19:22 GMT

Mr. Montgomery,
Thanks, I wasn't aware that ActivePDF was licensing PDF from Adobe.

Erik 1021:

My understanding is that Adobe "threatened" to sue (according to Microsoft, anyway) for anti-trust concerns, right? It sort of sounds like they would be suing because Office is a monopoly, and that by bundling PDF with Office, it is an anti-competitive move against Adobe, who makes a fair scad of money selling Acrobat Pro to businesses who want to translate Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents to PDF. Poof! Suddenly, not one of these businesses would need Acrobat any longer (well, at least not for generation...since MS' tool is a one-way conversion, Acrobat Pro is still useful for its editing capabilities, and JavaScripting, for those who use that). As I recall, MS was sued for such bundling with Windows and lost. Separating out the PDF capability in a download instead of bundling it would resolve that issue.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

M. David Peterson — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 17:26:52 GMT

I read through all of these comments and I see a lot of good stuff, and a lot of two faced "Microsoft is EVIL! Stick it to them!" comments.

I can see both arguments in regards to Adobe and Microsoft. Microsoft is attempting to provide value to their customers in a way that their customers have asked:

"Please give us support for PDF"

PDF is a document format. A container. Just like ODF and Office Open XML. The real value to both the customer and the manufacturer is in the tools. The formats are important, yes. But nobody (speaking in customer terms... Licensing of formats from one vendor to another obviously is a different scenario all together) will pay you money for a format if thats all it is... A format. They will pay you money for a tool that generates that format as output.

I understood Adobe's position before now... Allow MS to implement support for "Save as PDF..." and you, in essence, dillute if not completely kill your own market for the Adobe Acrobat toolset.

But to come after MS now after (I assume) agreeing to letting them implement "Save as PDF..." support eight months ago?

That just doesn't make any sense. Adobe is making themselves look like absolute fools... But Adobe (as a company) is, generally speaking, not foolish. So something else seems to be behind this.

What might that be?

Who knows, who cares.

If support can be provided as a separate download, then I don't think any of us who care have a thing to worry about. For those that don't care whether the support is there or not? Well then they have nothing to be concerned about either.

Moving past this: To those of you who are of the belief that MS should have to play by different rules.... Hmmmm... That's a tough line to walk. I can see the justification to some extent, but then I need to remind myself that this is ALL ABOUT the customer...

Or in other words... US!

It seems that the same folks who have/will/would attack MS for implementing ANY level of control over who can implement support for the Open Office XML format, are the same one defending Adobes justification for closing a so called "open" format.

None-the-less, I can empathize with the notion that all things being equal, there shouldn't be barriers like this in place. MS does own a significant share of the market, so not all things are equal in this regard.

But when it comes to "open" standards? I thought open meant open? If I'm mistaken in this, then please someone please provide a definition for when open is justifiably not open as in "open" and instead "open" as in

using System;

public class Document : IOpenStandard {

public Document () { }

private String vendor = "Microsoft";
private bool isOpen = true;

public bool SaveAsPDF (String filename) {

if (AdobeMayI(vendor)) {
Save((int)FORMAT.PDF, filename);
return true;
} else {
return false;
}

}

private bool AdobeMayI (String vend) {

if (vend == "Microsoft") {

isOpen = false;
return isOpen;

} else {

return isOpen;

}
}

public void Save (int format, String filename) {

Save(format, filename);
}
}

While in both cases, isOpen is returned, obviously a boolean by the name of isOpen, but who's value is set to false doesn't still mean isOpen as it was originally defined.

The question then is not:

Is Adobe justified in setting isOpen to false when (vendor == "Microsoft")?

and instead,

What does isOpen REALLY mean? Is "isOpen" justified as a read/write boolean value, or should it be a readonly value that when tested for, if it equals "true" thats it... thats the only test that needs to be evaluated?

Be careful in your answers here... You wouldn't want to provide MS justification for closing things off for those in whom they decide are legitimate competitors...

Or would you?

If yes, then I guess we should change,

using System;

to

abusing System;

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Noah — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 17:37:53 GMT

An MS hack complaining about OPEN STANDARDS at another company?

re: Legal issues around PDF support

M. David Peterson — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 18:14:00 GMT

not complaining... Wondering what the definition of "open" is/should be. The same people who claim that "open" means open, seem to be suggesting that "well "open" doesn't REALLY mean open when MS is involved, just for people who are of no great consequence to Adobe's bottom line."

re: Legal issues around PDF support

M. David Peterson — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 18:58:34 GMT

@Fred

>> * Java was subverted and essentially ruined by Microsoft because it had potential to threaten Windows. <<

False.

Visual J++ provided 100% Java support. They also allowed you the ability to tie directly into the Windows framework using JFC. There was no requirement. As a developer if you wanted the extra capabilities offered by these extensions, you could use them. Would the applications then run cross platform. No. But that was the choice of the customer, not MS. MS simply provided tools for them.

When Sun realized they were hurtin'' BIG TIME, they decided to sue Microsoft for providing MORE value to the developer. At that stage in Java's history, Java didn't provide what JFC provided to the Windows developer. So in many ways, to get the things like printer driver support that actually worked, you needed JFC. Without it, you couldn't use a MAJOR majority of the hardware peripherals. So what should have MS done... Told their customers to "bite off, we don't care if you want your printer to work with Java-based Windows applications just like it does with C++-based Windows apps"?

So now Sun provides the JVM for the Windows platform because they told MS "you can't ship a VM as part of Windows anymore."

So who killed who?

Sun killed themselves by suing MS to stop shipping their own Java VM because it provided hooks to allow developers to implement support for features they couldn't otherwise provide support for.

Eclipse is written in Java. But they also use their own Windowing toolkit that has a more Windows native look and feel to it. Its cross platform. Its Java. But the Eclipse foundation recognizes that 90+% of their users run Windows. So they decided to provide a Windows look and feel, again, to benefit the customer by giving them something they are more used to using.

Sun counteracted with Net Beans, because they wanted a more Java look and feel, not Windows look and feel. But how many people care about the Java look and feel? Not sure... But obviously enough people care more about the Windows look and feel for the Eclipse foundation to develop a more Windows friendly UI toolkit. It still runs cross platform, but for some people thats just not good enough.

Why? Cuz' they don't like Windows. They're the minority... but for whatever reason there opinions matters most apparently.

Why? Because Sun wants to make the rules... Bottom line. They want to say who can do what, when, and how.

And the customer wins how?

* HTML is no longer a standard open language because IE has its own version.

Adam Bosworth, now with Google, provided the real reason behind developing the Trident engine the way he and his staff of developers did for IE 4.0. He provided this explanation just over a year ago. Just over a year ago he had been at Google for just under a year. Google and MS are competitors. He had every reason in the world to try and downplay why IE was the way it is... He didn't. Instead he explained why the need existed to build the engine the way it is. > http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/04/22/bosworth.html <

Here's a snippet:

"Bosworth explained that the key factors that enabled the web began with simplicity. HTTP was simple enough that any "P" language or JavaScript programmer could build applications. On the consumption side, web browsers such as Internet Explorer 4 were committed to rendering whatever they got. This meant that people could be sloppy and they didn't need to be high priests of syntax. Because it was a sloppy standard, people who otherwise couldn't have authored content did. The fact that it was a standard allowed this single, simple, sloppy, open wire format to run on every platform."

Here's another REALLY GOOD article in which Adam openly describes the lessons learned while developing the web in the early days, and how this plays into our more modern task at hand of trying to embrace the next stage of the web: Data feeds and the Semantic Web.

http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=337

* Windows API's have historically been released to 3d party application developers AFTER Microsoft has developed their own applications using those APIs.

Well, you kind of have to test things to make sure they work, right?

Wouldn't using your own software as a test bed for whats good and whats bad be a good thing? It's called "dogfood" or in other words "eat your own dogfood" before suggesting to others they should eat your dogfood. This is a good, positive thing.

None-the-less... Some API's are in response to customer requests. So no, they don't get used internally because the need doesn't exist.

* They sued the makers of the Lindows operating system because the name sounded too much like Windows.

Are you suggesting you don't see the comparison. What is a Lindow anyway? I know what a Window is. That makes sense. But a Lindow? Sounds pretty obvious to me... What is now called Linspire was attempting to feed off of the success of Windows by using a name that sounded eerily close to Windows, a Trade Mark of the Microsoft Corporation.

In a post of mine from this morning > http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/06/tbrayongoing_blog_title_of_the.html < I link to an article in which both Linus Torvalds and Florian Mueller defend the practice of defending your Trade Marks. > http://news.com.com/Torvalds+weighs+in+on+Linux+trademark+row/2100-7344_3-5841222.html <

Microsoft was justified in defending their Trade Mark. End of story.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

M. David Peterson — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:15:04 GMT

oops, missed the last one...

* Finally, Microsoft was secretly financing the SCO copyright lawsuits which threatened companies who used Linux.

I've seen these same accusations. Yet the US Government and the EU, both of which have ZERO problems in taking MS into the courtroom for charges of illegal business engagement , don't seem to have bought into these allegations.

Or maybe I've missed something? To be honest, I hear so many accusations being thrown MS's way I tend to not worry about learning more about them unless they seem substantiated. I haven't seen anything BUT accusations.

Can you provide substantiated proof of these allegations?

NOTE: By substantiated I don't mean an article on Slashdot.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

Karl De Abrew — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:16:05 GMT

Lathan,

It's entirely permissable for a company to create a product which confirms to the PDF reference (http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/index_reference.html - see page 8) including bookmarks and all other interactive elements. The only obvious exceptions are some technical areas relating to PDFs which have been "activated" with Acrobat Professional or Adobe LiveCycle software for commenting, form completion (and saving) using Adobe Reader.

The activePDF product you are referring to is a server product, but this has no relevance to the discussion here. You can equally find products such as our Nitro PDF which provides a drop-in replacement for Adobe Acrobat.

As an interesting aside for some -- as a PDF based ISV for over 10 years -- we felt that Microsoft's efforts to provide a Save As PDF were (going to be) positive for the industry and would result in dramatically increasing the number of PDF files in distribution, thereby increasing the demand for other software products that can operate on them. Granted, ISVs such as ourselves would need to remain nimble to ensure that we were continuing to offer services that were in demand.

-Karl

re: Legal issues around PDF support

M. David Peterson — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:22:10 GMT

NOTE: re: "Sun counteracted with Net Beans, because they wanted a more Java look and feel, not Windows look and feel."

Theres more to it than JUST this... but this is definitely one of several other reasons, all of them having to do with Sun wanting COMPLETE and TOTAL control of Java.

@ http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2006/06/a_response_to_java_succumbing.html#comment-35649 you will find the following (the first quote was from the same linked article, minus the page location identifier):

"It's really Open Source Java vs. Shared/Closed Source .NET. That's it - plain and simple"

How's that plain and simple?

Speaking of framework implementations:

---
.NET (the Common Language Infrastructure) has been standardized by the ECMA

Java has not.
---

---
.NET (CLI) has closed source (although there is a tool developed by an MS employee that will let you peer into the source all you want, and plug-ins that will let you output the source into a large base of supported languages), open source (Mono) and shared source (Rotor)

Java has the Classpath project which has never been supported by Sun in ANY way. MS on the other hand has worked with dozens of non-MS folks to develop the ECMA backed CLI and C# language.
---

If you are not speaking directly to the framework, and instead to the community based projects... Well then you've got some serious homework to do. The OSS .NET community is HUGE! Mono, of course, sits at the top of that stack. And, as mentioned, its a HUGE stack... and growing.

Get used to it... .NET OSS is growing... Java OSS is shrinking. .NET is growing. Java is shrinking (in usage.) My guess is that a lot of this has to do with the approach MS took that, up until just recently, Java has shunned (speaking in terms of standardization (which Sun still doesn't support any sort of initiative) and OSS (until recently its been a "hmmm... well... we'll get around to it at some point."

I will agree with the point that Java is what it is today BECAUSE of the OSS communities. But thats a compliment to the OSS communities, not Sun.

re: Legal issues around PDF support

M. David Peterson — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:25:30 GMT

@ Karl

"As an interesting aside for some -- as a PDF based ISV for over 10 years -- we felt that Microsoft's efforts to provide a Save As PDF were (going to be) positive for the industry and would result in dramatically increasing the number of PDF files in distribution, thereby increasing the demand for other software products that can operate on them. Granted, ISVs such as ourselves would need to remain nimble to ensure that we were continuing to offer services that were in demand."

That's a REALLY interesting point. I should bring this up on XSL-List, as their are obviously a TON of folks who could provide some interesting insite on this matter. It would be especially interesting to hear G. Ken Holman's thoughts on the matter given his fine tuned expertise in XSL-FO (which for those unaware, provides the ability, among other formats, to output as PDF (processor dependent))

re: Legal issues around PDF support

BrianJones — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 19:29:49 GMT

Thanks for all the great comments everyone.

I think it's clear that a new post is needed to try and answer some of the questions folks have had.

The new post is here: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/03/616022.aspx

It tries to answer some of the questions raised, like Rosyna's thoughts that maybe it wasn't valid PDF that we were outputting. Hopefully it helps clear all that up.

I'm also going to close down the comments on this postand we can continue the discussion on the new post. Otherwise it's just too hard to keep up with all the comments coming in.

-Brian

Microsoft to not Include "Save As PDF" in Next Version of Office

It's Way Too Early For This — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 20:29:22 GMT

As a followup to the post from yesterday, it turns out that Microsoft has decided to pull this feature...

Office 2007 drops PDF and XPS

The Ultimate Reading Experience — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:03:17 GMT

Well looks like Adobe and Microsoft have hit a bit of a bump in the
road, after an announcement today...

Microsoft Office 2007 のPDFサポートはどうなる？

PDF　千夜一夜 — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 02:01:51 GMT

週末に、思いがけないニュースが飛び込んできました。 Wall Street Jo...

Microsoft to Drop PDF Support in Office!

IT's all about Microsoft — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 03:03:03 GMT

VIA Brian Jones
Now thats very very disappointing!! &nbsp;&nbsp;I really love this feature.
However...

Microsoft to Drop PDF Support in Office! — Alpesh Nakars’ Blogosphere Archive

Microsoft to Drop PDF Support in Office! — Alpesh Nakars’ Blogosphere Archive — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 03:10:46 GMT

PingBack from http://alpesh.nakars.com/blog/?p=24

aloke ’s blog » Blog Archive » Microsoft to Drop PDF Support in Office

aloke ’s blog » Blog Archive » Microsoft to Drop PDF Support in Office — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:09:30 GMT

PingBack from http://aloke.info/2006/microsoft-to-drop-pdf-support-in-office/

Office 2007 senza PDF!!!

Mr.E — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:36:01 GMT

Sampath’s Mindspace » Blog Archive » Adobe’s double standards

Sampath’s Mindspace » Blog Archive » Adobe’s double standards — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:32:42 GMT

PingBack from http://sampath.wordpress.com/2006/06/05/adobes-double-standards/

Adobe Screws You Over

Jesse Ezell Blog — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:23:48 GMT

If you haven't heard about the whole Adobe nonsense lately, you should. Adobe is really doing a good...

PDF support in Office 2007

Dennis' avonturen in .net — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:55:55 GMT

Voor diegene die mijn praatje op de SDC of bij DIWUG hebben gevolgd (en voor andere geinteresseerden):...

Adinel.eu - Despre mine :: Adobe s-a suparat pe Microsoft din cauza formatului PDF

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:17:58 GMT

PingBack from http://www.adinel.eu/adobe-s-a-suparat-pe-microsoft-din-cauza-formatului-pdf/

CyberTech Rambler » MS vs Adobe soon?

CyberTech Rambler » MS vs Adobe soon? — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:38:43 GMT

PingBack from http://ctrambler.wordpress.com/2006/06/05/ms-vs-adobe-soon/

To PDF or not to PDF?

Tom Servo's Blogogogogog — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:02:23 GMT

A couple of months ago, Microsoft promised to include PDF saving capabilities into Office 2007. Starting...

JD’s Weblog

JD’s Weblog — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:10:00 GMT

PingBack from http://blog.bluecog.co.nz/archives/2006/06/05/pdf-support-in-office-2007-gets-dropped/

Office 2007 - something new every day

Darryl Burling @ Work — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 01:17:17 GMT

Dont ya just hate it when that happens.&nbsp; We just finish telling everyone about the export to PDF...

PDF Support Removed from Office 2007

Peter's Software House — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 03:12:41 GMT

This is really dumb! Adobe threatened Microsoft with legal action about the inclusion of PDF support...

Office 2007 and PDF support no more...

Thushan Fernando — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 04:28:07 GMT

As you may have already heard, Office 2007 will not provide PDF Support out of the box, to quote Brian...

Venture Chronicles

Venture Chronicles — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:08:38 GMT

PingBack from http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/06/07/microsoft-legal-issues-around-pdf-support/

Competition between Adobe Acrobat PDF and Microsoft XPS Office 2007

admin — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:52:01 GMT

This is a collection of articles regarding competition between Adobe Acrobat PDF and Microsoft XPS Office 2007.

Adobe Acrobat PDF与Microsoft Office 2007和XPS

macroisv — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 02:10:03 GMT

Microsoft Office 2007的Save As PDF对Adobe Acrobat PDF构成致命威胁。

Save to PDF Features in Office 2007

Simon Phillips — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 12:11:14 GMT

One of the big features announced for Office 2007 is the ability to save to PDF. Those of you that have...

Office 2007: A Great Upgrade -- Alec Saunders .LOG

Office 2007: A Great Upgrade -- Alec Saunders .LOG — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:23:22 GMT

PingBack from http://saunderslog.com/2006/06/09/office-2007-a-great-upgrade/

Inside Office Online : Left off the guest list for the PDF party

Inside Office Online : Left off the guest list for the PDF party — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:36:19 GMT

PingBack from https://blogs.msdn.com:443/inside_office_online/archive/2006/06/12/628478.aspx

No PDF for Office 12

Chris Love's Official Blog - Professional ASP.NET — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:58:28 GMT

This is just typical, Adobe makes PDF an open file format that anyone can leverage, except Microsoft. So Microsoft was going to do someting that everyone wanted, I can not tell you how many of my web development customers ask me how they can save things

Adobe and PDF

shahine.com/omar/ — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:18:20 GMT

Smorgasbord 5

Ian Nelson — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:18:27 GMT

Gates to end daily MS role, to spend more time running his charitable foundation.&nbsp; Say what you...

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Follow-up on PDF legal issues

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Follow-up on PDF legal issues — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 02:32:53 GMT

PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/03/616022.aspx

usmediaweb» Blog Archive » Office 2007: A Great Upgrade

usmediaweb» Blog Archive » Office 2007: A Great Upgrade — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 05:45:51 GMT

PingBack from http://usmediaweb.net/2006/06/09/office-2007-a-great-upgrade/

NTT’s Core Dump 2.0…. » I take that back..

NTT’s Core Dump 2.0…. » I take that back.. — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 09:52:19 GMT

PingBack from http://nttup.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/i-take-that-back-2/

Comparing SQL Server 2005 and Oracle

Benjamin Jones — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 12:24:48 GMT

A few interesting&nbsp;whitepapers&nbsp;comparing&nbsp;SQL Server 2005 to Oracle (and particularly the...

Ali Halac’s Blog » Office 2007′den ????kar??lan PDF kaydetme

Ali Halac’s Blog » Office 2007′den ????kar??lan PDF kaydetme — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 02:24:02 GMT

PingBack from http://www.halac.net/blog/2006/06/office-2007den-cikarilan-pdf-kaydetme/tr/

BetterECM - russ stalters’ Blog on Exploring NextGen ECM » What A Shame! - Microsoft Backs Down From Adobe’s Threats

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:58:43 GMT

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No Adobe PDF Support for Office | Software Review | Hardware Review | Download Software | Camera | Handphone | Website List

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:09:44 GMT

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Convert to PDF as a free download instead of OOB in Office 2007...

xyz12 - MCMS 2002/SPS 2003/Office 2007 & ... — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 10:57:57 GMT

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/02/613702.aspx

BlueSparc design, technology news » Blog Archive » eWEEK’s Review of Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:04:08 GMT

PingBack from http://www.bluesparc.com/2006/06/01/eweeks-review-of-microsoft-office-2007-beta-2/

Visio 2007: Publish as PDF or XPS

Bill Morein's Weblog — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 22:32:22 GMT

As many of you know, Visio 2007 and the other Office applications will support exporting to Adobe PDF...

Reinvent the World » Blog Archive » Adobe s-a suparat pe Microsoft din cauza formatului PDF

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:28:58 GMT

PingBack from http://www.reinvent.ro/articole/adobe-s-a-suparat-pe-microsoft-din-cauza-formatului-pdf_05102006/

Windows Vista Weblog » No Adobe PDF Support for Office

Windows Vista Weblog » No Adobe PDF Support for Office — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 13:38:25 GMT

PingBack from http://www.windowsvistaweblog.com/2006/06/04/no-adobe-pdf-support-for-office/

tecosystems » PDF - From Open Format to Open Standard: The Q&A

tecosystems » PDF - From Open Format to Open Standard: The Q&A — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:10:14 GMT

PingBack from http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2007/01/30/iso_pdf/

Native PDF support on Office 2007 : how to

faquick.org — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:15:13 GMT

This is something I almost forgot, until I had to install Office 2007 to another PC in the company I work for. And this is also something probably not many people will know (or remember, from the early beta stages...

Microsoft's Situation in der Softwarewelt

We did start the fire (sorry Billy) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:43:25 GMT

Gerade stolperte ich beim Lesen eines Artikels über XPS in Brian Jones' Blog über einen Kommentar von

Doug Geary’s Blog » Blog Archive » Office 2007 Lets You Save Documents As .PDF

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:06:20 GMT

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Mike Chambers » Blog Archive » On Microsoft, PDF and the threat to open standards

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:12:58 GMT

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Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Legal issues around PDF support | Music

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Legal issues around PDF support | Music — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:36:48 GMT

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Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Legal issues around PDF support | Music

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Legal issues around PDF support | Music — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:38:59 GMT

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Can Live » Blog Archive » Adobe Breaks Silence on PDF support in Office 2007

Can Live » Blog Archive » Adobe Breaks Silence on PDF support in Office 2007 — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:58:40 GMT

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Adobe Breaks Silence on PDF support in Office 2007 | Etixet

Adobe Breaks Silence on PDF support in Office 2007 | Etixet — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:37:08 GMT

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Adobe Breaks Silence on PDF support in Office 2007 | Technology

Adobe Breaks Silence on PDF support in Office 2007 | Technology — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:48:15 GMT

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Ezines and Web Magaizines » Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Legal issues around PDF support

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:02:34 GMT

PingBack from http://ezinefrontpageblog.info/brian-jones-open-xml-formats-legal-issues-around-pdf-support/

markwilson.it » A tale of two XML document formats

markwilson.it » A tale of two XML document formats — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:27:16 GMT

PingBack from http://www.markwilson.co.uk/blog/2008/05/a-tale-of-two-xml-document-formats.htm

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msdn c open file changed — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:50:35 GMT

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Microsoft Office 2007 « Tech Recipe

Microsoft Office 2007 « Tech Recipe — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:48:24 GMT

PingBack from http://techrecipeblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/microsoft-office-2007/

Brian Jones Office Extensibility Legal issues around PDF support | Paid Surveys

Brian Jones Office Extensibility Legal issues around PDF support | Paid Surveys — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:10:37 GMT

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Brian Jones Office Extensibility Legal issues around PDF support | Wood TV Stand

Brian Jones Office Extensibility Legal issues around PDF support | Wood TV Stand — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:30:43 GMT

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Legal issues around PDF support

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Adobe Threatens Microsoft With Lawsuit

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Adobe: Remove PDF Support in Office 2007

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Adobe (the debbil) giving MS grief

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Brian Jones Blog about PDF in Office

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pschmid.net - Patrick Schmid: Putting You & I back into Office 2007’s UI - Sad day;

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Adbobe Picks a File-Format Fight

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XPS, PDF and Adobe

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&quot;Save As PDF&quot; Not In The Box After All

Technology News » Blog Archive » Microsoft to Adobe: Let’s Make a Deal

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Adobe, PDF, Microsoft, and Office

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Adobe again

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Adobe wants you to produce PDF freely, unless you're Microsoft

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The Tech Journal » Will Adobe Take Its Microsoft Malcontent to the Courtroom?

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I say boycott Adobe...

PDF support in Office 2007: maybe not?

Adobe, give yer head a shake

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"Save As PDF" Not In The Box After All

Microsoft to not Include "Save As PDF" in Next Version of Office