[Xiph-Advocacy] Hi Ivo, some questions to join

[Ian Malone]

Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote:
> On 2/22/08, JorSol <jorsol at jorsol.tk> wrote:
>> (since in Spanish there is no ambiguity for free which means "libre" :-)
> 
> "Livre" here.  We have no ambiguity, either.
> 
>> but since you don't even mention it on SOM I'm not
>> clear about the status of it...
> 
> It's not like I have been appointed as the authority to label which
> formats are free or not, but since the iCommons Summit of last year, I
> stopped mentioning PDF altogether in SOM[1].  Why?  I heard some parts
> of PDF are not completely open, like forms, or recent additions like
> video/audio embeding[2].  Truth be told, I have not yet looked into
> the issue, because there were so many other things more important to
> look at and PDF doesn't really need to be promoted.  Should it be
> advocated?  Well, my earlier presentations in SOM stated "for sharing
> documents that don't need to be edited, use PDF".  If it's free or
> open, though, I'm sure... for now.  Someone may clear out the issue
> after reading this, but if nobody does, I'll research the matter ASAP.
> 

I thought this  might be of interest, written by Craig Ringer on the
Scribus email list
<http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus>, "Re: [Scribus]
Creating PDF forms whose data can be saved with acrobat reader):"

"It's a bit different in this case, in that PDF *is* an open format, 
it's fully documented, and you can do basically whatever you want with
it.  You can include your own enabling signature, for example. The only
difference is that Adobe's free Reader product (hardly the only PDF
reader in town) chooses not to honour feature enabling signatures from
people who're not authorized by Adobe."

This is taken a little out of context; there are things you can't
do (like reverse engineering signatures to persuade Adobe Reader to
allow filling in forms you create).

-- 
imalone