JD on EP

I understand the concern and see that similar things have happened (say with Java)... but what I don't get is whether MS has done this in any way with Vista. I mean, sure, Adobe should be concerned and do what they can to reduce the likilyhood... but it sounds (at this point) to be nothing more than speculation.

I'd be just as concerned if Adobe wanted to change the rules of licensing the ability to write PDFs as a preemptive self-defense. Wasn't there some lawsuit where Adobe said they didn't want Vista to be able to write PDFs for free... that it would be okay if they charged for it? Am I mixing up (the nearly continuous stream of) lawsuits?

[jd sez: I haven't fully tracked all the legal wrangling either... once it got into that strange legal/blogger campaign of "adobe's going to sue us" I stepped out of the discussion.]

Its a pretty simple concept, and the main reason that Open Source is so successful--its free.

Once MS has the volume of users, it will be in a position to dominate the print market. They'll eventually migrate programmers/developers onto they're XPS platform too.

Isn't competition wonderful?

[jd sez: "Skip Intro" on this one... guy doesn't appear to understand what happened to DHTML and to Java.]

It sounds like everything is clearly summarized by this:
"By creating PDFs that are substandard or by creating PDFs that don't meet the actual PDF standard, they could end up demonstrating that XPS is a better solution. They are giving away XPS creation free with the operating system, and of course they can make that more reliable than the PDF they end up creating in Microsoft Office, and we don't want that to happen."

1. Adobe doesn't want MS to be able to give away the ability to create PDFs for free.
2. Adobe doesn't want MS to be able to demonstrate that, side-by-side, XPS is better than PDF (read the comments carefully in the quote).
3. Adobe wants to continue making money off PDF tools (again, see point #1).

In summary, it's all about the money.

There is no way Adobe can argue any other stance than the economic one. Why? Because the PDF "standard" is available for anyone, and too many people have too many tools out there, which Adobe seemingly reserves the right to deny use of the PDF format to any new creator it wants, i.e., MS in this case.

There are many PDF creation tools on the market -- some freeware, some shareware, and some commercial -- and many of those tools are crap. They are not up-to-standard at all. The PDFs they create choke even Acrobat Professional when attempting to open PDFs created by those tools, so Adobe's "standards compliance" argument goes right down the drain.

Here's a case of one monopoly (undeclared by the courts) calling another monopoly ("declared" by the courts, but now, evidently, cleared of that title, as the case was resolved and MS split and met the court's standards for no longer being a monopoly, so that designation by Adobe is inaccurate) a monopolistic, underhanded player than wants everything to go how it wants in terms of "future standards." It's funny, though, because what Adobe is accusing MS of doing, well, Adobe is doing with PDF. **Whine ... we want ... whine ... PDF ... whine ... to be the ... whine ... standard for ... whine ... years to come ... whine ... so we can keep ... whine, whine ... making money ... whine ... and not allow ... whine whine ... MS the opportunity to offer ... whine ... PDF in Office or other tools ... whine whine ... and users will learn to use XPS ... whine ... and see it is better and more future-ready than PDF ... whine ... and we will lose money. Whine whine."

I think a few whines were missed in the whining, but that seems to sum up Chizen's whining. [jd sez: You're projecting.]