Reason for PDF Format

[Werner Koch]

Jeffrey Thompson <jeffrey at thompsonic.com> writes:

> Since the Adobe Acrobat Reader is free, it won't cost the user anything to get
> top-quality documentation.  

[Taking the RMS hat]

NO IT IS NOT FREE!  You don't have to spend money for it, that's all.


         Free Software is about freedom and not price.


[Back on technical issues]

And PDF is a ugly format - I can't load it into my editor nor can I
browse it without starting X and I don't want to do this while I am
working (say) on a train.  Plain text is more easy to read and that is
why people who are interested in information use lynx to browse
through HTML informations.

If you like PDF you can create it from Postscript - no problem.  But
SGML is the modern way to structure information and so we should do it 
and use the Docbook DTD which is well designed for technical
applications.

I'd prefer not to continue with that thread - I remember the ugly
thread about which name should be used for GnuPG; much discussion
about a nit.  There are much more important things to do;  e.g. I have
to rewrite the trust verification code after a long discussion with
Thomas, although I don't see that the PGP solution is the Right Thing (tm)
but I do it anyway to please the pgp users.

Maybe it is time to setup a user mailing list.


  Werner


p.s.
I did not follow the whole thread so If I have missed an important
point, please tell me.