Legal issues around PDF support

Article
06/02/2006

About 8 months ago we announced to our MVPs that we would provide PDF publish support natively in the 2007 Office system. We made the move due to overwhelming customer demand for PDF support, and it was received really well. The blog post I made around the announcement was probably one of my most widely read posts of the year.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to do the right thing for the customer now. There was a news article in the WSJ today (and now on CNet) indicating that Adobe didn't like that we provided the save to pdf functionality directly in the box, and so they’ve been pushing us to take it out. I'm still trying to figure that one out given that PDF is usually viewed as an open standard and there are other office suites out there that already support PDF output. I don't see us providing functionality that's any different from what others are doing.

It looks like Adobe wanted us to charge our customers extra for the Save as PDF capability, which we just aren't willing to do (especially given that other companies already offer it for free). In order to work around this, it looks like we're going to offer it as a free download instead. At least that way it's still free for Office users, but unfortunately now there is an added hassle in that anyone that wants the functionality is going to have to download it separately.

This really is one of those cases where you just have to shake your head. Adobe got a lot of goodwill with customers, particularly in government circles, for making PDF available as an open standard. It’s amazing that they would go back on the openness pledge. Unfortunately, the really big losers here are the customers who now have one extra hassle when they deploy Office.

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. Anyone can build support for our formats, and we've already seen people starting to do this today ( a couple weeks ago I actually referred to a demo we saw from the Novell folks where they had a prototype of a product using the Office Open XML formats ). I don't think this was the intention, but Adobe seems to be saying that PDF is actually not open (or that it is open for some, but not for others). I'm not sure that any of those government policy makes could justify this outcome.

Hopefully Adobe will decide that this is a mistake and that they probably shouldn't try to sue people for using an open file format. If you're like me and think this is just a bad thing all around, you should let them know.

-Brian

Comments

Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 02, 2006

"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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006

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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
Brian Jones talks about Adobe's position against including built in PDF support into Office 2007 forcing...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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!
Anonymous
June 02, 2006

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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
Brian Jones indicates that Adobe is a little upset that Microsoft was going to add PDF support in Office...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006

"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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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).
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
PingBack from http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/06/02/16
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
The last two weeks have seen a big increase in the amount of press coverage and blog discussions of file-format...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
@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?
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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!
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
@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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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!
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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?
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
So it is certainly an interesting news day today. &nbsp;For those interested in the world of PDF and...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
A few months back, I wrote a post about how Excel 2007 will enable customers to save their work as a...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
PingBack from http://tech.t10n.net/?p=39
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
Office 2007 won&rsquo;t include Save As PDF by default, but you can still get it as&nbsp;a free download.&nbsp;...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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!
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
Ironic really. Sounds like something Microsoft often does to other vendors.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
At the community leaders day I was telling one of the attendees that my sister was a Professor of computer...
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
At least I can create PDF's natively on my Mac mini
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
PingBack from http://rjdohnert.wordpress.com/2006/06/03/will-adobe-take-its-microsoft-malcontent-to-the-courtroom/
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
Please stay tuned while this blog is experiencing temporary infestation by Slashbots.

PatriotB: nice one <g>
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
"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.
Anonymous
June 02, 2006
Y'know, this stuff really makes me mad sometimes.
Microsoft to pull PDF, XPS support from Office 2007...
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
I really don&rsquo;t want to be Bill Gates.
Yeah, you heard right.
Even with a trillion dollars in...
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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.
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
@ 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))
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
As a followup to the post from yesterday, it turns out that Microsoft has decided to pull this feature...
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
Well looks like Adobe and Microsoft have hit a bit of a bump in the
road, after an announcement today...
Anonymous
June 03, 2006
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...
Anonymous
June 04, 2006
VIA Brian Jones
Now thats very very disappointing!! &nbsp;&nbsp;I really love this feature.
However...
Anonymous
June 04, 2006
PingBack from http://alpesh.nakars.com/blog/?p=24
Anonymous
June 04, 2006
PingBack from http://aloke.info/2006/microsoft-to-drop-pdf-support-in-office/
Anonymous
June 04, 2006
PingBack from http://sampath.wordpress.com/2006/06/05/adobes-double-standards/
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
If you haven't heard about the whole Adobe nonsense lately, you should. Adobe is really doing a good...
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
Voor diegene die mijn praatje op de SDC of bij DIWUG hebben gevolgd (en voor andere geinteresseerden):...
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
PingBack from http://www.adinel.eu/adobe-s-a-suparat-pe-microsoft-din-cauza-formatului-pdf/
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
PingBack from http://ctrambler.wordpress.com/2006/06/05/ms-vs-adobe-soon/
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
A couple of months ago, Microsoft promised to include PDF saving capabilities into Office 2007. Starting...
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
PingBack from http://blog.bluecog.co.nz/archives/2006/06/05/pdf-support-in-office-2007-gets-dropped/
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
Dont ya just hate it when that happens.&nbsp; We just finish telling everyone about the export to PDF...
Anonymous
June 05, 2006
This is really dumb! Adobe threatened Microsoft with legal action about the inclusion of PDF support...
Anonymous
June 06, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
June 07, 2006
PingBack from http://jeffnolan.com/wp/2006/06/07/microsoft-legal-issues-around-pdf-support/
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June 07, 2006
This is a collection of articles regarding competition between Adobe Acrobat PDF and Microsoft XPS Office 2007.
Anonymous
June 08, 2006
Microsoft Office 2007的Save As PDF对Adobe Acrobat PDF构成致命威胁。
Anonymous
June 08, 2006
One of the big features announced for Office 2007 is the ability to save to PDF. Those of you that have...
Anonymous
June 09, 2006
PingBack from http://saunderslog.com/2006/06/09/office-2007-a-great-upgrade/
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June 12, 2006
PingBack from https://blogs.msdn.com:443/inside_office_online/archive/2006/06/12/628478.aspx
Anonymous
June 13, 2006
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
Anonymous
June 16, 2006
Gates to end daily MS role, to spend more time running his charitable foundation.&nbsp; Say what you...
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June 16, 2006
PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/03/616022.aspx
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June 17, 2006
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June 17, 2006
A few interesting&nbsp;whitepapers&nbsp;comparing&nbsp;SQL Server 2005 to Oracle (and particularly the...
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June 18, 2006
PingBack from http://www.halac.net/blog/2006/06/office-2007den-cikarilan-pdf-kaydetme/tr/
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June 19, 2006
PingBack from http://betterecm.wordpress.com/2006/06/04/what-a-shame-microsoft-backs-down-from-adobes-threats/
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June 23, 2006
PingBack from http://www.jogjareview.com/index.php/2006/06/24/no-adobe-pdf-support-for-office/
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June 23, 2006
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/02/613702.aspx
Anonymous
June 26, 2006
PingBack from http://www.bluesparc.com/2006/06/01/eweeks-review-of-microsoft-office-2007-beta-2/
Anonymous
August 09, 2006
As many of you know, Visio 2007 and the other Office applications will support exporting to Adobe PDF...
Anonymous
October 04, 2006
PingBack from http://www.reinvent.ro/articole/adobe-s-a-suparat-pe-microsoft-din-cauza-formatului-pdf_05102006/
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December 30, 2006
PingBack from http://www.windowsvistaweblog.com/2006/06/04/no-adobe-pdf-support-for-office/
Anonymous
January 30, 2007
PingBack from http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2007/01/30/iso_pdf/
Anonymous
March 01, 2007
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...
Anonymous
April 10, 2007
Gerade stolperte ich beim Lesen eines Artikels über XPS in Brian Jones' Blog über einen Kommentar von
Anonymous
September 12, 2007
PingBack from http://gearytech.com/blog/?p=25
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October 31, 2007
PingBack from http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2006/06/10/on-microsoft-pdf-and-the-threat-to-open-standards/
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April 29, 2008
PingBack from http://ezinefrontpageblog.info/brian-jones-open-xml-formats-legal-issues-around-pdf-support/
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May 29, 2008
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June 24, 2008
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August 15, 2008
PingBack from http://techrecipeblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/microsoft-office-2007/
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