Quote:
Originally Posted by gerraldo
Sorry, but my native language is german and when I looked it up:
- from latin "proprietarius" = the owner
- the original meaning is therefor "owned by someone", "belonging to someone"
- juridically it's meaning is "copyrighted"
Plus an english dictionary translated:
- company-owned (firmeneigen)
- secured (gesichert)
- secret (geheim)
So when I wrote about PDF being proprietary, I was referring to "being copyrighted" and "owned by a company" (Adobe), which it surely is...  |
What you looked up is quite correct. PDF *WAS* a proprietory and *DID* belong to Adobe. But once something is standardized by the ISO it doesn't belong to one single company anymore in the sense that that company can change/withdraw/etc. that format on a whim. There's a panel for every decision on what changes are going to be integrated into the PDF standard and while Adobe certainly has a lot to say in that panel they are no longer able to do what they want.
They do still create enhancements and extensions for PDF which are not in the standard and therefore are not supported by all applications (signing, lots of form features, etc) therefore there *are* proprietory PDFs out there. But those you wouldn't be able to read on the (current) Cybook...