Did you know there are ISO standards for the following: PDF, HTML and Dublin Core Metadata?
Document management — Electronic document file format for long-term preservation — Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4, Information technology — Document description and processing languages — HyperText Markup Language (HTML) (which has a User’s Guide), and Information and documentation — The Dublin Core metadata element set.
The PDF and the HTML are profiles of the well-known standards, suitable for organizations wishing for a conservative subset suitable for archiving, interchange and complience. ISO is quite a good forum for this kind of standards making: it leaves the originating organization free to innovate while meeting the needs of users for a fixed base format.
The recent kerfuffle between Microsoft and Adobe over PDF support in Office is a little odd, to say the least. Neither side is mentioning that it is only a restricted form of PDF that is really an open standard, as far as I can work out (more info welcome!): ISO PDF. From what I gather, ISO PDF doesn’t allow some of the modern features like bookmarks, it is quite primitive. What we need is for MS (and Adobe, and Open Office) customers to start demanding “Regardless of what extended formats you provide, we want at least ISO PDF, ISO HTML and ISO Dublin Core”
It isn’t an either/or proposition, really, is it? Does MS really need to say “All PDF or no PDF?” ISO PDF may be boring and limited, but it provides an intermediate position between all and none.
Restricted features suck. Adobe seems to be pissed off at Microsoft because they are implementing bookmarks in their PDF generation.
What's annoying about the whole Adobe vs. Microsoft butting of heads is that neither side has admitted why there's an issue. Adobe implies that Microsoft could steer PDF and hurt their revenue (but also say that ~1% of their revenue comes from PDF creation). Microsoft on the other hand isn't admitting that they're creating _more_ than ISO PDF, they keep saying they're creating a standards-compliant PDF, and they seem pretty happy to let people think they're doing strictly open standard stuff.
>> What we need is for MS (and Adobe, and Open Office) customers to start demanding "Regardless of what extended formats you provide, we want at least ISO PDF, ISO HTML and ISO Dublin Core"
e.g. the x86 archictecture has DEFINITELY proven its longevity in the marketplace, but I'm certainly glad that things have continued to follow Moores law since the 8086/88 processor hit the scene!
While the rendering engines themselves can do some amazing things (and I don't think we've come even close to the potential of such technology), do we really need anything other a standards conformant URI/IRI to link to a resource location, whether this be something we use a personal bookmark, or as a way to point someone or something else to a resource we would like to share with them?
Some more information.
ISO PDF is based on PDF 1.4 (from 2001, as used by Acrobat 5) and has two variants, PDF/X for prepress and PDFF/A for visual archives. Wikipedia also mentions PDF/E for engineering drawings and PDF/UA for accessible PDFs, but I have no info on these.
For info on Adobe's patent licensing, see http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000030.shtml
Some info on capabilities of different versions at
http://www.prepressure.com/pdf/history/history02.htm