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There are several standards for .pdf which are ISO standards, and the technical specification for the format is readily available, so it's not what I would call proprietary --- lots of different implementations as well, several of which are free and opensource.
Similarly, while the TeX source code has a rather interesting license, it's widely accepted in the industry that it is acceptable to create commercial, closed source implementations based on it --- and there're several successors which have more open licenses.
As regards the whole ``PDF is not an eBook format'' --- it devolves down to the old joke, ``How many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg?''.
Just because a format doesn't suit a particular person's usage for a particular set of formats, doesn't mean that a format isn't part of that set.
On the bright side, at least no one has launched an ``ePub files are not eBooks, but eScrolls'' thread.
William
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