[svlug] Boycotting Adobe

[Don Marti]

begin Chris Palmer quotation of Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 08:31:53PM -0700:

> 2. PDF is an open standard, I believe. Why don't we take what's good (a
> technically good, open standard) and leave what's bad (low quality,
> proprietary software and spurious prosecution)?

The free PDF-handling tools are in Debian, which has the strictest
standards of software freedom I know.  Adobe does not have a patent
on PDF the way Unisys does on GIF, so <ianal>you're not taking
the same risk using free software PDF tools as you are with free
software GIF tools.</ianal>

> There's no reason to become such an ideologue that you forget what your
> principles are in the frisson of defiance.

Of course, you should be using PDF as a portable printing format
only, not as a substitute for more easily manipulable online formats.

"Forcing users to browse PDF documents makes your website's usability
about 300% worse relative to HTML pages." -- Jakob Nielsen
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html

-- 
Don Marti                                                   Free Dmitry!
http://zgp.org/~dmarti       Monday, July 23, San Jose, Moscow, and more
dmarti at zgp.org                http://boycottadobe.com/pages/rallies.html