LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Andrew Pullin <andrew@hotspurbgc.com.au>
  To  : linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 17:14:37 +1030

Re: Licensing and registration feedback

Hi Again All,
    I think alot of people have missed the point I was
trying to make about Postscript as an alternate to HTML (or
whatever). HTML as we know it has advanced to what it is now
because people 'scratched the itch' and improved it with
what was needed. HTML Ver. 1.0 was quite primitive when it
first came out. The point I was trying to make is that :
Postscript describes a page layout to be viewed to a
Printer, HTML describes a page layout to be viewed to a
Browser. The two are different in implementation, but very
similar in what they do- "they describe a page layout to be
viewed to a (insert function here)". Ghostview doesn't look
like a Browser because it was written to soft copy view a
Postscript page layout. Postscript doesn't do what HTML
does, because it was originally designed for a different
purpose. Because both languages were of similar
primitiveness to begin with, if someone had thought to write
a PSTP instead of a HTTP, then the web could be very
different today. Both languages can be customised to do just
about anything you want to do to a displayed page; some of
the defaults and syntaxes are different; and because each
language was developed to do different things, each language
can do different things that the other cannot, but if
Postscript was developed instead of HTML, the end result
could conceivably be the same. In fact PDF is _supposed_ to
be an extension of Postscript, the only reason it is a bit
unwieldy at times is because of the baggage it has to carry
left over from early Postscript development for a completely
different purpose.

    Finally in regards to Proprietary, non-OSS arguments. I
might point out that JAVA is Proprietary, ie Sun has the
final say before anything is released to the public - hence
the Micro$oft suit. If Sun has the balls to independently
develop a programming language and then GIVE it away while
maintaining some control, my understanding of the suit was
not that Microsoft developed new extensions, but that they
developed "this'll stuff Netscape" extensions and then tried
to pass it off as "Standard Java", then let them. Sun has
always said they will consider any improvements to the
Language for inclusion, even from Micro$oft. So basically if
Sun can do it with Java, why can't Adobe do it with
Postscript. At present nobody stops me writing a program in
Java and distributing it, and nobody has yet tried to stop
me writing something in Postscript. If Sun were unreasonable
with their demands on Java, then people would abandon it
very quickly, if Adobe were unreasonable with Postscript,
then the same would happen. I don't really see a problem
here.


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Andrew <mikero@norfolk.nf>
To: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
Date: Monday, 17 January 2000 23:18
Subject: Re: Licensing and registration feedback


>On Mon, 17 Jan 2000, David Newall wrote:
>> Postscript is a page layout language.  That's quite
different to a markup
>> language.  In fact Postscript is a whole lot more than a
page layout
>> language, being that it's also a general purpose
computing language,
>> however page layout is it's purpose.
>
>precisely. As such it is used as the internal conveyor in
linux for porting
>a print document around the network until printed. In every
respect it's
>purpose (under linux) is the same as GDI printing in
windoze.
>
>rather than develop umpty different input types for umpty
different
>printers (eg text, html, grafix, dvi, tex) to ->lexmark,
pci, bubblejet the
>input types are all converted to postscript. Think up a new
standard,
>gobbldegook.asp, and you convert it, not to a pcl printer,
but to
>postscript. that way, people can concentrate solely on
making a driver for
>postscript to new-fangled printer rather than stuff about
with 90 different
>input formats.
>
>Porting documents around is not the same thing (not that
you said that),
>Postrcript is the least likely candidate, it's sh*t, it's
proprietary, and
>it is *very* difficult to program in (steep reverse polish
notation
>learning curve). My guess is that html will become the
defacto standard (if
>it isn't already). It's not a question of 'goodness' but
the sheer
>convenience of transporting html accross any system, the
readily available
>viewers, and the just as readily available editors.
>
>Of course, this is not the html that we know now, it is the
later evolution
>as it merges the 'fixed placement'  and presentation of
documents inherent
>in PDF, and to a lesser extent RTF. But I imagine, html is
here to stay.
>
> -- http://users.nf/linux/ StepByStep
>submissions: mikero@norfolk.nf
>
>--
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