[poppler] PDF 2.0 Spec (answer from FSFE)

Tue Mar 5 16:27:20 UTC 2019

Another organization option that is already a Class A liaison with ISO is the PDF Association (http://www.pdfa.org).

Leonard

On 3/5/19, 1:47 PM, "poppler on behalf of Tobias Deiminger" <poppler-bounces at lists.freedesktop.org on behalf of haxtibal at posteo.de> wrote:

    Hi folks,

    below is a copy of an answer from FSF Europe regarding
    what we can do to get access to PDF ISO standard. Thanks
    again to Max Mehl and LUGOS, in case you're reading here.

    The bottom line is, we should try to find an organisation that
    is/becomes member of a national standardisation body (170€/year)
    on behalf of poppler, and poppler devs need to be member of that
    org in turn. This way we get (free) access to drafts of standards
    and could even influence the standards development.

    Friendly orgs to ask may be
    - KDE e.V.
    - GNOME Foundation
    - The Document Foundation

    What's your opinion / preference about that? Would you be ok with
    becoming a member of one of that orgs? If you're interested,
    I can carry on contacting named orgs regarding the idea.

    Cheers
    Tobias

    --- snip, copy of answer starts here ---

     From: FSFE <contact at fsfe.org> (Free Software Foundation Europe e.V.)
    To: tobias.deiminger at posteo.de
    CC: aacid at kde.org

    Dear Tobias,

    Some weeks ago you've asked us for help with the latest PDF
    specification.

    21/12/2018 09:57 - FSFE wrote:
    > 12/12/2018 19:54 - Tobias Deiminger wrote:
    > > Poppler developers need access to the PDF specification,
    > > which used to be available free of charge. Things changed in
    > > 2017 when there was a new major release of the PDF standard.
    > > The old version 1.7 was (C) Adobe [1], but the new version
    > > 2.0 is (C) ISO and they claim 198 CHF [2] or 229,40 € [3]
    > > for one copy. I talked to DIN, they have other licensing
    > > models, but still too expensive for private volunteers.
    > 
    > Thanks for your request and your work on this important project.
    > 
    > > Does FSFE already have some contact with ISO and a known
    > > procedure regarding getting standards for free software
    > > projects, from similar cases? And no matter if yes or no,
    > > could you contact ISO and ask them if they can give away some
    > > copies - 6 would be nice - for free, for a charitable project?
    > > You're experienced in dealing with big organisations, and a
    > > request from you would be loaded with some political weight.
    > 
    > As far as I know we have no direct contact with ISO, but I will ask our
    > core team whether someone has some connections. Otherwise, I will send 
    > a
    > mail to ISO on my own, but I can't promise anything of course.

    We've discussed that, and this is the latest status on it, given by a
    member of the Slovenian NGO LUGOS:

       Update from LUGOS’ side after we discussed internally and with
       SIST (Slovenian Institute for Standardisation), a member of which
       LUGOS is as well:

       Firstly – and most importantly – the spec in question is already
       being superseeded by a newer¹ one. The ISO 32000-2:2017 standard
       that Tobias was asking for is currently in 90.92/Review phase and
       is going to be superseeded by ISO/CD 32000-2.

       BTW, the ISO/CD 32000-2, is currently in the 30.60/Committee Draft
       (CD) phase, so a perfect time for organisations to influence the
       new standard (revision) in the making.

       Members of national standardisation bodies have (free) access to
       drafts of standards and can influence the development. In almost
       all cases the very last draft is identical to the final standard.

       SIST itself is not following the ISO/TC 171/SC 2 yet, but LUGOS
       can make a request to join that Technical Committee (TC). We are
       discussing it, and probably will join.

       Even then, LUGOS would not be allowed to share the standard draft
       outside of its membership, due to copyright protection.

       But, I should let you know that the price for an NGO to be a
       member of the national standardisation body is very much
       affordable – LUGOS pays cca. 170 €/year to be member of SIST – the
       easiest way to get your hands on a standard (in the making) would
       be to have KDE e.V. or FSFE e.V. join DIN and request to follow
       ISO/TC 171/SC 2 (and other TC of interest).

       To keep things kosher, it would be prudent to either make all who
       have access to the standard members of the e.V., or to make the
       PDF 2.0 feature an (official) project of said e.V., so people who
       would be working on this project would be able to have access to
       the docs legally.

    As the FSFE is not doing any software development, I would recommend to
    team up with KDE e.V. or The Document Foundation, which both have some
    projects in this regard. If you need some contacts to these
    organisations, I'd be happy to help.

    Best,
    Max

    -- 
    Max Mehl - Free Software Foundation Europe e.V.
    Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany.
    Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030
    Your support enables our work (fsfe.org/join)
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