Re: Why not PDF: Last Call: 'Proposed Experiment: Normative Format in Addition to ASCII Text' to Experimental RFC (draft-ash-alt-formats)

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--On Monday, 19 June, 2006 17:24 +0200 Peter Dambier
<peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Just try this good example:
> 
> http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/133654main_ESAS_charts.pdf
> 
> It is a nice promotion for the successor to the space shuttle.
> Best store it localy before viewing.
> 
> It is a nice document with wonderful pictures. But building
> the screens takes me hours.
> 
> That is one of the reasons why I am afraid of pdf.

Peter,

I don't reach the same conclusion you do.  Yes, it is possible
to use PDF to construct large files, full of very high
resolution and possibly even tricky images.   It is also
possible to use it to generate callouts to serious security
problems and/or to make a document unreadable unless one is
online.   The inference I draw from these things for IETF use of
PDF is that we need to both

	* profile the features that can be used and 
	
	* to generate some enforceable guidelines about
	moderation.  I believe Wirth's adage about making things
	as complex as it needs to be, but no more complex is
	appropriate to this, but hard to define in a way that
	can be enforced without a few subjective measures too
	many.


I've complained about the first of those vis-a-vis this
proposal.  Perhaps others should be thinking about the second,
since it would apply, to different degrees, to any publication
form with more capabilities than ASCII text.

     john


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