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From: zwicky@tut.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: PostScript standard?
Message-ID: <255@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Wed, 30-Sep-87 19:28:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: tut.255
Posted: Wed Sep 30 19:28:16 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Oct-87 02:28:27 EDT
References: <535@micas.UUCP> <15085@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: zwicky%tut.cis.ohio-state.edu@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth Zwicky)
Organization: The Ohio State University, CIS Dept.
Lines: 36
Xref: utgpu comp.graphics:1135 comp.windows.misc:60

In article <15085@topaz.rutgers.edu> gaynor@topaz.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes:
>jvs@micas.UUCP (Jo stockley) writes:
>> It appears to me that Postscript is owned by Adobe Inc.  It also
>> seems that to implement PostScript one needs a license from Adobe.
>> It further appears that said license costs a hell of a lot (circa
>> 100,000 dollars) of ackers.
>
>Please excuse my ignorance...  If I wanted to write my *own*
>PostScript interpreter (I don't, actually), I would require licensing
>from Adobe?  It wouldn't be enough to merely accredit the design of
>the language to Adobe?  Or have I misinterpreted what you're saying?
>
>Silver.

You have correctly interpreted what he is saying; he's just wrong.
At least, there exist several PostScript clones, none of them
called PostScript (the name belongs to Adobe) and none of them
using Adobe's implementation, but all of them accept almost
exactly the same input.  So it would be possible to write one's own
PostScript-like language interpreter. It could in fact, duplicate
the functionality of Adobe's PostScript identically. It could not,
however, be called PostScript, and you could not consult any version
of Adobe's code before doing so.

As for this keeping PostScript from becoming a standard, now that
IBM is using it, I doubt that anything can keep it from becoming
a printer standard. (I seem to remember hearing of non-Adobe PostScript
clone controllers, however) It may not become a standard graphics language,
but I doubt anything ever will do that.

	Elizabeth D. Zwicky (supposedly zwicky@cis.ohio-state.edu)

This
is filler
just in
case.