Stephen writes the news up in his famous Q&A format.
Q: Why should implementers or users of PDF technologies care?
A: Well, for one, it will be independent. For another, it will be open to contributions, although they will be managed according to the regimented – and often glacial – standards body processes. But ultimately, an open PDF standard will provide third party implementers with the knowledge that they will never be subject to Adobe’s whims with respect to the format or its implementations.
For users, the principle impact of the news for them will be the ability for third parties – Microsoft or whomever – to provide support for the format as they see fit. This manifests itself in the form of even greater tool support. In theory, this should have been possible already – and there are clearly no shortage of third party PDF implementations around already – but in practice that wasn’t always the case. Apart from that the impact should be fairly negligible.
I have agitated about Adobe openness before, so what can I say? I am disarmed. Good job Adobe- for what its worth I think this will drive your bottom line.
disclaimer: Adobe is not a client right now, but it may be very soon.
