gheet wrote:
>
>
> Paul Cunningham wrote:
>
>>
>> So for what it's worth here is my take on XPS ....
>>
>> XPS will be part of MS Windows Vista (and back ported to XP) when it is
>> released later this year (or whenever). This will probably make XPS
>> become the defacto standard for portable documents within a number of
>> years replacing PDF, ie. lots of windows PCs means lots of XPS document
>> files.
>
>
> That's a interesting view. But I don't see many people distribute
> file s in PDF format these days, unless they only want to distribute a
> read-only version. If MS is sticking to this format, this probably
> they will have to wait till w2k is phased out (unless it is ported
> also to it), I don't think this will win over PDF.
I would have to agree that it won't necessarily win out over PDF, but it
will clearly become an important format to support as Microsoft pushes
it forward.
>
> So, sooner rather than later, Solaris/OpenSolaris/Linux/etc will
>
>> need a XPS viewer and method of printing XPS document files. In the
>> longer term application will probably also need to be able to create XPS
>> document files.
>>
>> From the Solaris Printing System point of view, it probably means that
>> it needs to handle XPS formatted files. Solaris 9 & 10 currently use
>> 'a2ps' (via foomatic-rip) to convert files to the required printer PDL.
>> So I guess Solaris will wait until the opensource community has updated
>> 'a2ps' to be able handle XPS before the printing system can handle it.
>
>
> This will be the ideal.
Yes, It's likely that we will want to wait and incorporate a filter that
handles XPS for us.
>>
>> In the future, if companies like Global Graphics have their way, some
>> printers will have XPS as their inbuilt PDL. So the Solaris Printing
>> System will have to be able to convert other file formats to XPS to be
>> able to print to these XPS printers. Personally I don't think that this
>> is likely to happen in a big way though (but I may be wrong).
>
>
> Yeah. Even if it can do it, it still want to be backward
> compatible. so that can only mean more capabilities on the printers,
> but still the older format will need to be supported for a while.
>
At this point, I am less concerned about supporting printers with XPS at
their only built-in PDL, though that could change. Even now, printer
vendors are just starting to *add* support for PDF in their devices.
I haven't had the time to look into it, but I have been told that XPS
includes some MS proprietary components. IF this is true, the open
source community and printer manufacturers won't be able to fully
support XPS without a license for the proprietary technologies.
-Norm
