Adobe To Release Full PDF Specification to ISO

nickull writes "Adobe announced it will release the entire PDF specification (current version 1.7 ) to the International Standards Organization (ISO) via AIIM. PDF has reached a point in its maturity cycle where maintaining it in an open standards manner is the next logical step in evolution. Not only does this reinforce Adobe's commitment to open standards (see also my earlier blog on the release of flash runtime code to the Tamarin open source project at Sourceforge), but it demonstrates that open standards and open source strategies are really becoming a mainstream concept in the software industry. So what does this really mean? Most people know that PDF is already a standard so why do this now? This event is very subtle yet very significant. PDF will go from being an open standard/specification and de facto standard to a full blown de jure standard. The difference will not affect implementers much given PDF has been a published open standard for years. There are some important distinctions however. First — others will have a clearly documented process for contributing to the future of the PDF specification. That process also clearly documents the path for others to contribute their own Intellectual property for consideration in future versions of the standard. Perhaps Adobe could have set up some open standards process within the company but this would be merely duplicating the open standards process, which we felt was the proper home for PDF. Second, it helps cement the full PDF specification as the umbrella specification for all the other PDF standards under the ISO umbrella such as PDF/A, PDF/X and PDF/E. The move also helps realize the dreams of a fully open web as the web evolves (what some are calling Web 2.0), built upon truly open standards, technologies and protocols."

Re:Thanks Microsoft?

[lseltzer]

Can Adobe open up the spec like this and still threaten Microsoft legally for including a reader in Office 2007?

A: Of course they can, the whole thing was hypocritical to begin with.

...meanwile at the entrance to the Holy Temple...

[denzacar]

Sean Connery gasps: "But in the Latin alphabet, 'de jure' is written with an 'I'!"

Via AIM?

[exploder]

AdobeGrl2002: then like u put a 64-byte header blok
ISO_19_TX: thats hot

Releasing via AIIM

[CmdrPorno]

Why do they need to use AOL Instant Messenger to release it? Couldn't they just set up a Torrent of the spec?