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	["1206" "Tue" "15" "December" "1998" "12:20:16" "+0100" "Hans Aberg" "haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE" nil "28" "Re: pdf and ps  portable LaTeX" "^Date:" nil nil "12" nil nil nil nil nil]
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References: <v03110708b29b079d82fd@[130.237.37.57]> (message from Hans Aberg   
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Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1998 12:20:16 +0100
From: Hans Aberg <haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE>
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Subject:      Re: pdf and ps  portable LaTeX
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At 10:29 +0000 1998/12/15, David Carlisle wrote:
>You appear to be (deliberately?) confusing two things. The pdf or
>postscript _languages_ and particular implementations of _interpreters_
>for those languages.

No, I do not confuse those things: As long as Adobe own whatever it is,
they can call the shots.

>If you criticise pdftex on the grounds that pdf is `commercial'
>then you should make exactly the same objection about dvips.

So, if dvips and becomes commercially hot, then Adobe can ask for license
fees for both dvips and pdftex: In the case of dvips that is wholly
unlikely, because it is just an utility. In the case of pdftex, that is
probably unlikely, because the it is just a niche.

But suppose one would design a typesetting system that provides a bigger
market: Then Adobe might want to do that. Whatever the rules are now, Adobe
might decide to change them.

I just point out how those things work -- I have no idea if it is of any
importance in the case of PDF.

  Hans Aberg
                  * Email: Hans Aberg <mailto:haberg@member.ams.org>
                  * Home Page: <http://www.matematik.su.se/~haberg/>
                  * AMS member listing: <http://www.ams.org/cml/>