Well, while it's not "done" done., the ballot on PDF for Draft International Standard (DIS) is in. The ballot closed 2-Dec-2007, and the results are overwhelmingly in favor of approval for ISO 32000 PDF. 93% said yes, which is a clear indication of the importance of PDF throughout the world, and to the solid nature of the underlying PDF specification.
Now this was a lot of effort to pull together. We did follow a "lobby-free" policy with this effort. We did answer concerns when we were asked to clarify. We did log a few air miles when invited to discuss this in public forums. And we also took the PDF specification 1.7, removed any product dependencies, and created a world class draft standard. There was involvement in many groups within Adobe, engineering, products, marketing, legal, and the commitment from everyone to make this happen. And maybe a few of us lost some sleep over the last few days waiting for the result
The next phase of standards is more difficult. Creating a formal standard from a good de facto standard used by thousands of independent products is, well, not easy, but straightforward. Creating a new standard, or moving a standard requires dedicated, knowledgeable people who can spend the time and energy to create a specification that enables movement from the old and still keeps pace with use and technology. Finding those people is hard, getting their time is harder.
Adobe will work with ISO as it enters into the next phases of this standards process, and the company looks forward to collaborating with a global team that will continue to improve future ISO PDF standards. But Adobe is now just part of that global team.
So watch this space for updates... and I'm going to go catch a nap.
