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From: laser-lovers@uw-beaver
Newsgroups: fa.laser-lovers
Subject: Postscript vs. Interpress
Message-ID: <843@uw-beaver>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 00:19:15 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.843
Posted: Wed Feb 13 00:19:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 00:45:15 EST
Sender: daemon@uw-beaver
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 43

From: Randy Frank 

The comments from various people at Xerox sound like a last ditch attempt to
save Interpress from years of corporate stupidity.  Both XNS and Interpress
*could* probably have become major industry-wide standards had it not been for
Xerox's incredibly short-sighted position of on again/off again decisions as to
whether or not to release them, releasing them in little pieces to only
selected people, not stating up front a corporate position that ALL components
of Xerox's communications architecture would be made publicly available in a
TIMELY fashion, etc... (I *still* can't get a public description of something
as silly as the font format for a Xerox 2700 laser printer, ostensibly because
Xerox wants me to buy all my fonts from them.  Xerox should be trying to win my
font business by having the best and most complete font library,
competitively priced, and not by trying to keep everyone else from competing).

Even if Interpress and Postscript have similar technical capabilities, there
are these non-technical considerations for adopting Postscipt as an industry
wide page description language:

1) Adobe has made it clear that the specifications are public domain and easily
   obtainable, and that it intends to base its commercial success on the basis
   of the best products that implement the specifications, not on keeping
   the specifications under wraps. 

2) Adobe is actively trying to license the Postscript interpreter (one of its
   products) to any and all comers, so that a very wide range of competing
   printers will be available to the market.  Even though Xerox has finally
   released Interpress the likelyhood of Xerox doing anything to help others
   produce Interpress compatible printers is virtually nil.  (I have had more
   than one person tell me one of the primary arguments against releasing
   Interpress was the fear inside of Xerox that it would enable the Japanese
   to produce printers that competed with those produced by Xerox).  Xerox
   seems afraid to let its printers compete based on price/performance, and
   instead has kept specifications secret in an attempt to prevent competing
   products.

The reality of today's marketplace is that users are rightfully insisting that
interface specifications be fully available so that systems consisting of
products from a wide assortment of vendors can be easily interconnected.
Vendors who push "open systems interconnection" but then refuse to release
any and all specifications needed to operate in such an environment are asking
not to be taken seriously.
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