krempel@cmx.npac.syr.edu (Henry BJ Krempel) (12/22/88)
This is another perfect example of the inherent contradiction that exists when a "standard" is created and maintained by a commercial organisation. The "standard" PostScript is missing a few key features to make it useful to drive a display. Sun has put time and effort into the product that first made screen PostScript possible: NeWS. After Sun was through with the "feasibility study," Adobe decided that screen PostScript was interesting and solved these problems again, in a new and incompatible manner. Adobe feels that it is in its' best interest to create an incompatible system, and this may unfortunately seem to be true, with possible license fees coming in for systems running under both X and NeWS. (This can never happen: I'm sure some NeWS hacker will put something together) If Sun creates a Display PostScript compatibility mode, Adobe will continually create new incompatible undocumented features, with Sun development continually in Catch-Up mode. This is the old dilemma between open and proprietary systems, and this is the way it was in the bad old days. "Doesn't your emulator support extended REV 2 gobbledy-gook? Oh well, I guess you made a mistake" I can here those doors slamming now "the right choice." Who will win "the fight"? I don't know, but I know that with things the way they are, we all lose. I'm afraid there just aren't enough PostScript programmers on this planet to support two standards, and two window systems (NeWS and NeXTstep) whose useage and availability pales in comparison with X. We don't get fooled again! or do we?-- Henry B. J. Krempel <krempel@pacrat.npac.syr.edu> Computing and Network Services (CNS) Syracuse University 250 Machinery Hall, Syracuse, N.Y. 13244
rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) (12/23/88)
In article <926@cmx.npac.syr.edu>, krempel@cmx.npac.syr.edu (Henry BJ Krempel) writes: > This is another perfect example of the inherent contradiction that > exists when a "standard" is created and maintained by a commercial > organisation. Why is there an inherent contradiction? Is it really worse to have standards administered by an organization which really cares about the standard (as the basis for its raison d'etre) than to hand them off to some organization whose primary purpose is simply the cranking out of standards? Standards organizations often draw the membership of a group for technical development of a particular standard from organizations which want to control an evolving standard to capture market--whatever the cost to the standard itself. Some members of standards committees are sent because it gets them out of the office and out of the way! I've sat in on fortunately few real standards meetings, but enough to disgust me with the bureaucratic non-commercial standards process. A commercially-maintained standard may have different problems, but I hardly think it will turn out any worse. > The "standard" PostScript is missing a few key features to make it > useful to drive a display... I'm sure Adobe was aware of this...but at the point they released PostScript, they weren't aiming at displays, and the hardware horsepower for PostScript on displays wasn't widely enough available back then. >...Sun has put time and effort into the > product that first made screen PostScript possible: NeWS. After Sun > was through with the "feasibility study," Adobe decided that screen > PostScript was interesting and solved these problems again, in a new > and incompatible manner... Is there any reason to think that Adobe wasn't working on PostScript for displays? Remember that SunDEW (the precursor to NeWS) first really popped to the surface in early '86, and it was nowhere near to being a product at that point (at least by its author's claims). NeWS really happened in '87, and Display PostScript in '88. The results (NeWS and DPS) are different at a very fundamental, conceptual level. If you try to look at Sun's work as any sort of precursor to Adobe's, you have to wonder why they're so different! They sure look like two independent developments. > Adobe feels that it is in its' best interest to create an incompatible > system,... Did you get this from talking to Adobe? I'd be surprised. I'm not naive; I know that companies DO introduce incompatibilities for the sake of profit and market share, but I see no evidence that it's going on here. I think it's reckless to attribute that sort of motive without good reason. >...and this may unfortunately seem to be true, with possible > license fees coming in for systems running under both X and NeWS. But now you're getting closer to the point that makes all your carping about Adobe seem questionable: Sun apparently wanted something with PostScript-like capabilities wired in to a particular window system, and they built it. Adobe has decided (wisely for them, from a marketing standpoint) that they don't want to choose sides in the window-system war, so they're building something intended to work with more than one window system. Why don't you criticize Sun for building their own window system instead of working with X? After all, isn't NeWS a way for Sun to create gratuitous incompatibilities to try to lock people into their products? In fact, in a sense it is, although it's nothing so malicious, and I think that Sun has good, sound reasons for pushing NeWS instead of giving in to X. (I'm just trying to point out that you could be criticizing Sun as well as Adobe.) An even better question is why Sun and Adobe didn't try to get together and work things out... > If Sun creates a Display PostScript compatibility mode, Adobe will > continually create new incompatible undocumented features, with Sun > development continually in Catch-Up mode... Adobe has been pretty good about documenting just what PostScript is and sticking to it (with the obvious exception of the internal mechanisms which they use to protect their software and fonts). But of course they're going to keep developing it...Are you saying that Adobe should stop doing development on PostScript? Are they the "bad guys" for **enhancing their own product**?? Come on now. >...This is the old dilemma > between open and proprietary systems, and this is the way it was in > the bad old days... Open systems are a myth. Regarding your reference to AT&T (the "right choice" reference), just because AT&T has fumbled repeatedly doesn't mean that OSF will do it all right. Your enemy's enemy is *not* necessarily your friend (in the healthy-paranoia view of the world:-). Just because you (obviously) favor NeWS doesn't mean that Adobe is evil. There are problems with proprietary standards. There are also problems with "open" standards. > Who will win "the fight"?... What fight? Are you saying that an evolving product in a new market should simply spring, full-grown and uncontested, from one organization? It's not a fight so much as it is a development. There must be conflicting views! If it were obvious how it should be done, it would have been done long ago. >...I don't know, but I know that with things > the way they are, we all lose... Wrong-o. Welcome to the world of development. We get to choose. With Sun and Adobe both being formidable companies, and both having put out credible products, we get to try them. If either NeWS *or* DPS had taken hold completely right away, we'd be a lot more likely to be stuck with mistakes. Competitive pressures can get things fixed. Yes, there will be problems and more work than may seem necessary, until the dust settles. -- Dick Dunn UUCP: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Worst-case analysis must never begin with "No one would ever want..."
bzs@Encore.COM (Barry Shein) (12/24/88)
The only computer software standards are de-facto standards, it doesn't matter where the original software comes from. Standardization is an ex post facto activity, not something you make up one night in a smoke-filled room out of whole cloth. The fallacy we are all having shoved at us is that someone can sit down and write a piece of software and declare it a standard before it has significant following and practice. This does happen on rare occasion when the proferred solution fills a huge vacuum, NFS came close to this, but it's rare. Customers are now rushing about willy-nilly looking for the "standard", and vendors are of course selling it to them at every turn. A standard is something which happens after accepted usage develops. Fortran can be standardized because there is a great deal of overlap between the many versions. Unix has a chance of becoming standardized (remember, you'll rarely achieve a platonic standardization with no variation, just some large set of features generally considered essential) again as a result of broad use and practice to base a standard on. As a particularly bad example, ADA and ISO protocols are both "standards" which depend on bureaucratic muscle from government agencies for acceptance. As such they sort of mock the notion of a standard although they are at least defined. There is a slight difference between, for example, ISO protocols claiming to be standard ISO protocols (all fine and dandy, I agree) and ISO protocols claiming to be the standard networking protocol (but, as with ADA, it's amazing how a few billion dollars in DOD contracts focuses the mind!) After a decade I'm still awaiting my ISO protocol suite written in ADA... I remember finding out years ago that a DEC-20 used a "standard" power plug (there it was, right in the standards!) which unfortunately required a "standard" receptacle only manufactured by one company in the world, and they wouldn't have any for months. Not much call for that "standard", tho it certainly was standard. I think the analogy with current standards fever should be evident. Let's face it, "standards" have become the buzzword of the industry and, like most buzzwords, means whatever they want it to mean (which isn't much.) In most cases replacing the word "standard" with "popular" separates the wheat from the chaff: NFS is a popular remote file system protocol. Fortran is a popular programming language. DOD will require ADA to be popular. Adobe announces popular windowing system. Sun declares NeWS is already popular. Mumble denies X-windows popularity! ISO to be required as the popular networking protocol. TCP/IP to cease to be popular. OSF and Unix Int'l fight over which Unix will be mandated as popular. It's really gotten very silly. -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
schwartz@cs.swarthmore.edu (Scott Schwartz) (12/25/88)
In article <13061@ico.ISC.COM> rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn) writes: >An even better question is why Sun and Adobe didn't try to get together >and work things out... As I recall, when NeWS was announced, Sun announced that it was "taking over" PostScript Development. (After all, Sun is THE standards setter for the world, right?) Adobe, of course, said "no, you won't be doing that, either..." -- Scott Schwartz <schwartz@cs.swarthmore.edu> <psuvax1!vu-vlsi!swatsun!schwartz>
Stenger@tilde (Dan Stenger) (12/29/88)
In article <13061@ico.ISC.COM> you write: > In article <926@cmx.npac.syr.edu>, krempel@cmx.npac.syr.edu (Henry BJ Krempel) writes: > >...Sun has put time and effort into the > > product that first made screen PostScript possible: NeWS. After Sun > > was through with the "feasibility study," Adobe decided that screen > > PostScript was interesting and solved these problems again, in a new > > and incompatible manner... > > Is there any reason to think that Adobe wasn't working on PostScript for > displays? Remember that SunDEW (the precursor to NeWS) first really popped > to the surface in early '86, and it was nowhere near to being a product at > that point (at least by its author's claims). NeWS really happened in '87, > and Display PostScript in '88. At the "Screen PostScript" panel at SIGGRAPH '88 this issue was discussed by Charles Geschke from Adobe. To quote him: "The technology of Display PostScript is something that we have actively been working on as a graphics technology ever since the inception of our company back in December of 1982. ... It is a misconception that we did not want to do Display PostScript, even though I'm certain that's the impression James had [referring to an earlier comment about Adobe attempting to hire James Gosling before he went to Sun]. Actually, from the very beginning, and our very first licensees, many of them actively pursued the feasibility of PostScript for displays." For more details check out the SIGGRAPH '88 Panel Proceedings. > An even better question is why Sun and Adobe didn't try to get together > and work things out... I have never heard a definitive answer about this from anyone from Sun or Adobe but I have my own personal opinion. Adobe's main source of revenue is (or at lease used to be) from per copy royalties for PostScript. Because of this they don't license all of their source. Also Adobe is generally a conservative, slow moving company. Sun had some thoughts on how a window system should be wrapped around PostScript, some of which were in conflict with Adobe's own ideas in this area. They are also a quick acting company. I believe the lack of influence over the implementation, the lack of source availability, the Adobe royalty fees, and the slowness of Adobe in getting to the market caused Sun to decide to go do their own version. Dan Stenger Texas Instruments Computer Science Center stenger@csc.ti.com The opinions expressed are my own and not representative of Texas Instruments.