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Jul 02, 08 - 10:48 am Comment from: Lazy European

Nice. Maybe a little fear of Silverlight after all?

I have never quite understood why it is that Macs play so well with PDF while on Windows Microsoft get sued by Adobe for trying to incorporate it..

Guess that is now history though.

Jul 02, 08 - 10:58 am Comment from: Tommy Boy

I deal with a lot of OSS peeps who have crappy PDF readers that don't support transparency (and because Reader is "commercial", they can't load it on their machines). This renders a lot of my artwork, especially that that uses cut-outs or drop shadows nearly illegible in their viewers.

Now that PDF is ISO standard maybe the crapware PDF viewers will now be distributed that will be able to view all of my art.

Jul 02, 08 - 11:24 am Comment from: Zune Tang®

You little MAC crybabies just loooooovve your namby-pamby open standards, don't you. I can hear you lemmings now: "oh look at me I use MAC and what's great is it makes generous use of yet another independent and internationally sanctioned file format at the OS level". Whatever.

Microsoft XPS is hot on the heels of the old PDF format an Microsoft doesn't have to get permission to add features or make improvements. Why do what everybody else is doing when you can march to the beat of a true innovator like the geniuses in Redmond? I thought you MAC sheep thought different.

Your potential. Our passion.™

@Macaday

Perhaps because Microsoft has a history of "sharing" and "partnering" with other companies, when what they really intend to do is steal or co-opt the technology for their own benefit, then use an army of lawyers to prevent the original company from ever again laying claim to the technology they created.

For a lot more information on this, read through the articles on http://www.roughlydrafted.com

Jul 02, 08 - 11:30 am Comment from: oh no my shorts

@ Lazy European

It has nothing to do with fear of Silverlight. It's just that Adobe did it right -- they didn't "fast-track" the process in an attempt to shovel a bunch of crap down ISO's throats, as did a certain standards-corrupting monopolistic software marketing company.

Adobe submitted PDF 1.7 to ISO in January, 2007. It took ISO about 18 months to approve it as a standard.

Jul 02, 08 - 11:42 am Comment from: January 24, 1984

In slow but unequivocal ways, the MSFT hegemony is being disassembled.

Jul 02, 08 - 11:47 am Comment from: ChrissyOne

Suck on that, DOCX dorks!

wow that sure was easy, no noise about this iso standard huh

Jul 02, 08 - 12:16 pm Comment from: Think

Sniff.... poor MS and docx.

What will they do now?

The walls are crumbling and the kings have no clothes.

Think about Ballmer and the monkey boy dance.....ugh.

Apple licensed Adobe's Display Postscript when they built MacOS X to allow the Mac to natively generate/display PDF files natively within the operating system. That's why the Mac plays so well with PDF files, and also why the built-in Preview application actually displays PDF files faster than the free commercial Adobe Acrobat Reader. This MacOS X functionality also makes it easy for Leopard to use Quick Look to display PDF files with a simple right-click context menu option.

Did Microsoft attempt to PAY Adobe for a PDF/Display Postscript license to incorporate it into Windows, or did it attempt to steal it?

Jul 02, 08 - 12:56 pm Comment from: HMCIV

“By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardization, we are reinforcing our commitment to openness"

Sounds like Kevin was gritting his teeth when he said that.

You little PC crybabies just loooooovve your namby-pamby MICROSOFT standards, don't you. I can hear you lemmings now: "oh look at me I use Windows and what's great is it makes generous use of yet another closed and internationally exploited file format at the OS level". Whatever.

Apple is hot on the heels of any new open format and Apple doesn't have to get users screwed or developers locked into one companys problems to add features or make improvements. Why do what everybody else is doing when you can march to the beat of a true innovator like the geniuses in Cupertino? I thought you PC sheep thought FINALLY AWAKE FROM YOUR VIRUS INFECTED, MAL-WARE CRIPPLED, AND OS LIMITED COMPUTERS- BUT LEMMINGS ARE LEMMINGS.

Your potential. Our Pissing.™

Jul 02, 08 - 01:23 pm Comment from: oh no my shorts

I love it when people discover Zune Tang® for the first time and don't get the sarcasm.

Part of the reason Adobe doesn't get along with Microsoft is that it is still fuming over the TrueType episode -- the partially successful effort by MS to get around Postscript with its own type rendering technology (Apple's ill-advised participation in this scheme was one of many tragedies during the Jobs-less years).

I am not sure I understand the reference, in an earlier post, to this as a defensive move against Silverlight. What does PDF have to do with Sliverlight? A much more comparable technology is Adobe's Flash, which has far more to fear from H.264 and Apple web innovations than it does from Silverlight.

Yes, obviously comparing Silverlight to PDF was someone losing their grasp on reality and comparing chalk with cheese. That said like Office I suppose in years to come it could develop into some lame form of chalky cheese that eats into part of its online market.

I think most people understand zuny's contributions are attempts at sarcasm and irony, however I see no problem with micky taking what is after all a scarily true reflection of the pc clones actual thinking process. Unfortunately for us all, one doesn't have to be especially clever to actually mimic their stupidity, which the rewrite of the lacklustre original showed up rather well I think.

Jul 02, 08 - 03:24 pm Comment from: iDon't

Adobe sucks just a little less than M$. Their products are over priced and don't work well.

Jul 02, 08 - 03:32 pm Comment from: MCCFR

Apple licensed Adobe's Display Postscript when they built MacOS X to allow the Mac to natively generate/display PDF files natively within the operating system. That's why the Mac plays so well with PDF files, and also why the built-in Preview application actually displays PDF files faster than the free commercial Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Nearly, but not quite: NeXTStep was based on Display Postcript, however – when there was whole pissing contest about licensing fees – Apple actually went down the PDF technology route for Quartz. So it could be argued that nearly every thing that's 2D on a Mac is a PDF that changes several dozen times a second.

This MacOS X functionality also makes it easy for Leopard to use Quick Look to display PDF files with a simple right-click context menu option.

Of course, this bit is also true for any other document format where someone develops the QuickLook viewer plug-in for that particular document type.

can we have the normal Zune Tang back please?

Jul 02, 08 - 04:19 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

Lazy sez: "Nice. Maybe a little fear of Silverlight after all?"

Uh, no. Wrong technology. Silverlight is supposed to be the Flash killer. (hahaha!)

More likely Adobe want in on the new document standards war, now between PDF, Open Document and that Office Open XML MS boondoggle.

Question: What exactly was supposed to be the point of having an international document standard if the standards committee can't keep their legs closed, so to speak? What am I supposed to do with this three-headed baby? Which two should I lop off?

;-D

Maybe Zune Tang is doing the twist and we do not know it. I do not know what is up, but is kinda funny- a 360 degree sarcasm.

Just a thought.

Jul 02, 08 - 06:38 pm Comment from: oh no my shorts

@NCG598

Is that like the Jason Kidd quote, said when his team was doing very badly: "We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees."

OK Microsoft- now SCREW!

@oh no my shorts

YES, that is a 360 degree twist with that 180 degree roll that happens 50 percent of the time for 25 percent of the population who believe a 100 percent of the lies 75 percent of the time on the 360 degree roll with at pesky 180 degree twist.

Damn- 100 percent confused!!!!! What was that question again?

Jul 02, 08 - 07:16 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

Whoever's cloning Zune Tang®, THANK YOU!

Now THAT'S humorous.

Clone Me! Clone Me!

;-D

Ahem...Ralph M:

Originally developed by Apple as a competitor to PostScript, TrueType was later licensed by Microsoft for Windows. It was included with Apple's operating system starting with Mac OS 7 in 1991 and Windows 3.1 in 1992. TrueType fonts have been widely used in all successive versions of each OS.

Back in the late 1980s, Apple and Microsoft each were seeking ways to avoid paying royalties to Adobe for PostScript fonts. Microsoft attempted to develop a companion printing rendering engine called TrueImage, but this was not successful.

I believe that Apple later turned over all development rights to Microsoft as a part of some technology exchange. Microsoft later created the newer OpenType version of TrueType. Today, both companies now include a basic set of TrueType fonts in their respective operating systems.

Jul 03, 08 - 01:20 pm Comment from: oh no my shorts

@HD Boy

Thanks for setting the record straight. I considered doing it yesterday but then 5 o'clock rolled around...

Ralph M, here's a link on the history of TrueType:

http://www.truetype-typography.com/tthist.htm

Jul 03, 08 - 01:51 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

Off Topic.

HD Boy sez: "I believe that Apple later turned over all development rights to Microsoft as a part of some technology exchange."

Yes. It was part of the API sharing agreement with MS after they were caught red-handed stealing QuickTime code and refused to return it. This was in 1997. Rather than get their rectum's sued off, Bill Gates agreed to an arrangement created by Steve Jobs whereby MS would buy and hold onto non-voting Apple stock for five years. MS would pay an undisclosed amount of money to Apple for damages. MS would continue developing Office for Mac for five years. Bill Gates would show up at MacWorld 1998 on a big screen just like the Big Brother face in Apple's 1984 Macintosh ad (which was utterly hilarious and Gates never got the joke). AND Apple and MS would open their APIs to their technology to each other for five years. (Yes folks, all of the above is verifiable fact. Do your own homework).

A friend of mine speculates that the APIs agreement is one reason why Apple was able to successfully create BootCamp for Leopard.