Subject: RE: Faux Pas -- web publication in proprietary formats at ietf.org

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 15:30:59 -0800

> PDF is *very* vendor-specific and proprietary. Who sets the
> standards for PDF? I remember there used to be discussions
> here if the RFC's should be published in PDF also. It's
> always rejected of course, even if PDF is probably the best
> standard you can get for a formated document (better than
> postscript that it was derrived from). So you may want to ask
> people for Postscript there if you are really that centric
> about open standards. :-)

Postscript is no different, it is a proprietary format but one the IETF
has in the past used for standards and still accepts as a secondary -
despite the fact postscript support is no longer ubiquitous.

> The use of standards in this world is shyzophrene, I used to
> be against HTML emails too, but I got used to it and consider
> it very practical to mark words in diffrent colors in long
> replies. But I imagine if I send a html mail to this list I
> will get flamed (depends on the list police of html email though).

Every time I see one of those stupid 'campaign against HTML email' sigs
I send a reply in HTML.

HTML was intended to be an email format and works well as an email
format. Javascript on the other hand...

I take the view that this is a technology business and if people don't
like new technology they probably have less to contribute than they
imagine.

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 08:59:22 +0100

> despite the fact postscript support is no longer ubiquitous.

The advantage of PDF is that it preserves the exact appearance of the
original document, and that it is designed to be a final format, that
is, it is not designed to be editable (and editing PDF is difficult,
deliberately so).  Also, PDF readers of some kind are available for
just about every conceivable platform, and they all work extremely
well.  PDF documents also tend to print very well, too.  This is why
the printing industry long ago adopted PDF (and PDF was designed for
that industry).  I'm not aware of any other format that is as reliable
for preserving the format of a printed document and as portable.

> format. Javascript on the other hand...

HTML is a Web format, not an e-mail format.  And unlike PDF, HTML does
not guarantee any particular presentation at the receiving end, since
the receiving software must interpret the HTML. HTML gives
suggestions, not absolute rules as PDF does, which means that HTML may
look nothing like the author intended.

I keep my e-mail programs set to disable HTML for both sending and
receiving.  I don't need fancy formatting in e-mail.  If I truly wish
to send something that is nicely formatted, I send PDF.

> like new technology they probably have less to contribute than they

The same is true of people who use technologies just for the sake of
using technologies.  They are mostly geeks, with a poor grasp of the
real world of end users who see technology as a tool, not as an end in
itself.

--
Anthony

---

From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 00:25:18 -0800 (PST)

> look nothing like the author intended.

I fully agree. And for those of us who prefer to use text-based e-mail 
clients (I use pine), HTML-only e-mails are close to un-readable. 
Fortunately, many clients include the alternative text version, but
not all.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen 
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Academic Research and Technology Initiatives, Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   GSM: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: Avri Doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 08:08:32 -0500

On 5 nov 2005, at 02.59, Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:

> well.

I used to be a proponent of PDF usage in the IETF, but I have been  
informed that there are no PDF readers for the blind.  This makes it  
less then optimal as a universal vehicle.

Of course I may be wrong - did not do the research myself, or  
technology may change.  Though I think the pictorial nature of PDF is  
a barrier.

a.

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:14:42 +0100

> less then optimal as a universal vehicle.

The simple solution is to have a text-only version of everything, even
if there is a PDF version.  Text is more universal than any other
type of file, but since it has so few formatting options, it can be
hard to read (which is why a PDF version is also useful).

It should be noted that Acrobat 5.0 and following versions provide
support for screen readers and for export to formats such as HTML and
RTF.  (However, I've never gone beyond Acrobat 4.0 to create
documents, mainly because I don't like the increasing opportunities
for viruses in later versions.)

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2005 02:41:40 +0100

Anthony G. Atkielski wrote:
 
> The advantage of PDF is that it preserves the exact
> appearance of the original document,

For thoe who want this that's nice as far as it works,
but I'm generally more interested in the _content_ and
not style or layout.  And I don't want to print it, I
want to read it.  In a GUI or text mode window with
the dimensions selected by me.

> PDF readers of some kind are available for just about
> every conceivable platform, and they all work extremely
> well.

This is not the case.  Last DOS version I've seen was
AcroDos 1, last available OS/2 version was AcroRead 3.

With PDF I'd guess that my chances are about 50%, for
PS it's more like 90%, for HTML minus JS/CSS/flash etc.
it's 99%, and for US ASCII it's of course 100%.  Dito
for Latin-1 or windows-1252, but I disgress.

> the printing industry long ago adopted PDF (and PDF
> was designed for that industry).

IIRC that _was_ also the initial idea of SGML.

> HTML may look nothing like the author intended.

Now if the author is more interested in his layout than
readability and accesibility, let alone transport costs,
then he's obviously stupid.

> I don't need fancy formatting in e-mail.

I don't need "1:1 printability", as long as I can read
it it's fine from my POV.

> If I truly wish to send something that is nicely 
> formatted, I send PDF.

Version history popstop.cmd 1.7:
| Added JV to MAGIC(), binary starts with %PDF or similar

> They are mostly geeks, with a poor grasp of the
> real world of end users

It was only a spammer trying PDF because it offers links
not found by SpamCop's parser.
                             Bye, Frank

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 11:34:37 +0100

Frank Ellermann writes:

> For thoe who want this that's nice as far as it works, but I'm
> generally more interested in the _content_ and not style or layout.

Sometimes layout is important, if text and graphic elements are mixed.

> And I don't want to print it, I want to read it. In a GUI or text
> mode window with the dimensions selected by me.

Then plain text is best.

> AcroDos 1, last available OS/2 version was AcroRead 3.

So PDF readers are available for those platforms.

> IIRC that _was_ also the initial idea of SGML.

SGML wasn't precise enough, I think.

> then he's obviously stupid.

Tell that to print newspapers and book and magazine publishers.

> | Added JV to MAGIC(), binary starts with %PDF or similar

I don't know what this means.

> not found by SpamCop's parser.

The latest versions of PDF seem to support more executable code, which
I do not like _at all_.  One of the traditional advantages of PDF has
been that it doesn't carry any significant executable code, making it
immune to viruses.  Unfortunately, thanks to the idiots at Adobe, that
is no longer the case, although it's still far from an ideal vector
for a virus.

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 19:32:21 -0500

>>>>> "Avri" == Avri Doria <[email-masked]> writes:

    Avri> I used to be a proponent of PDF usage in the IETF, but I
    Avri> have been informed that there are no PDF readers for the
    Avri> blind.  This makes it less then optimal as a universal
    Avri> vehicle.

I believe this is false.  I find pdfs easier than powerpoint to deal
with.  I basically cannot deal with ppt but can mostly deal with pdf.
(html, text, docbook, tex, nroff, graphvis are all vastly preferable)

for Unix, there's pdftotext and friends.  For Windows, Acrobat is
generally accessible if you spend enough money.  For OS X, Preview
plus Voiceover isn't worse than Voiceover normally is.

--Sam

---

From: Thomas Kuiper <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 10:09:37 +0800

Hello,

> hard to read (which is why a PDF version is also useful).

Few formatting options indeed, especially if I look at the beautiness of 
some ASCII Art you can find in the RFC's. Some real images with diffrent 
font sizes and flows could be more readable and understandable. HTML 
documents are even supposed to be printable now (thanks to CSS). But I don't 
know if thats a reality given that diffrent browsers interpret it so 
diffrently...

Here is a real beauty on page 22 of RFC 793:

September 1981
                                           Transmission Control Protocol
                                                Functional Specification

                              +---------+ ---------\      active OPEN
                              |  CLOSED |            \    -----------
                              +---------+<---------\   \   create TCB
                                |     ^              \   \  snd SYN
                   passive OPEN |     |   CLOSE        \   \
                   ------------ |     | ----------       \   \
                    create TCB  |     | delete TCB         \   \
                                V     |                      \   \
                              +---------+            CLOSE    |    \
                              |  LISTEN |          ---------- |     |
                              +---------+          delete TCB |     |
                   rcv SYN      |     |     SEND              |     |
                  -----------   |     |    -------            |     V
+---------+      snd SYN,ACK  /       \   snd SYN          +---------+
|         |<-----------------           ------------------>|         |
|   SYN   |                    rcv SYN                     |   SYN   |
|   RCVD  |<-----------------------------------------------|   SENT  |
|         |                    snd ACK                     |         |
|         |------------------           -------------------|         |
+---------+   rcv ACK of SYN  \       /  rcv SYN,ACK       +---------+
   |           --------------   |     |   -----------
   |                  x         |     |     snd ACK
   |                            V     V
   |  CLOSE                   +---------+
   | -------                  |  ESTAB  |
   | snd FIN                  +---------+
   |                   CLOSE    |     |    rcv FIN
   V                  -------   |     |    -------
+---------+          snd FIN  /       \   snd ACK          +---------+
|  FIN    |<-----------------           ------------------>|  CLOSE  |
| WAIT-1  |------------------                              |   WAIT  |
+---------+          rcv FIN  \                            +---------+
   | rcv ACK of FIN   -------   |                            CLOSE  |
   | --------------   snd ACK   |                           ------- |
   V        x                   V                           snd FIN V
+---------+                  +---------+                   +---------+
|FINWAIT-2|                  | CLOSING |                   | LAST-ACK|
+---------+                  +---------+                   +---------+
   |                rcv ACK of FIN |                 rcv ACK of FIN |
   |  rcv FIN       -------------- |    Timeout=2MSL -------------- |
   |  -------              x       V    ------------        x       V
    \ snd ACK                 +---------+delete TCB         +---------+
     ------------------------>|TIME WAIT|------------------>| CLOSED  |
                              +---------+                   +---------+
                       TCP Connection State Diagram
                               Figure 6.

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 04:06:23 +0100

> Here is a real beauty on page 22 of RFC 793:

An ideally suited to PDF.  It would be much easier to generate that
way, much easier to read, and much easier to print legibly.  There's
nothing wrong with having the text version as a backup, but when you
get into graphics it's hard to insist on text only.

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 10:31:10 +0100

On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 04:06:23AM +0100,
 Anthony G. Atkielski <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 15 lines which said:

> when you get into graphics it's hard to insist on text only.

I agree, SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics, http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/)
should be the standard for RFC. True, it is not an IETF standard but
it is open (for whatever definition of open you choose).

An alternative is the Graphviz "dot" language
(http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/) which is certainly
much simpler to edit by hand but is not completely open (it is a
proprietary format, although its use is free and there is a free
software implementation).

---

From: "Anthony G. Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 19:19:04 +0100

> it is open (for whatever definition of open you choose).

Neither PostScript nor PDF is secret.  And you can write software to
process PDF without paying any royalties; I think the same is true for
PostScript.  This is vastly preferable to reinventing the wheel.

> software implementation).

Why is this better than PostScript and PDF?