Java 1.1.8 was Re: Lock generated PDF
My 'platform' is a slot loading iMac. I guessed right then. :-) You could install MacOSX which has a decent JDK 1.3.1. Apart from the fact that I would be making a leap of faith that all else I want to do, would be effective (id est not too slow) once I have OS X (note that it is quite hard to return to classic Mac OS), it remains a goal for my project to run on systems three years old. I feel that I should not force my customers to upgrade. It should be a general goal of Open Source projects to be backwards compatible. My understanding is that it should be possible to use a tool like ant to extract a Java 1.1 subset. Should it? To a certain extent, yes. But I think it would be best if Steve Jobs held his promise to fully support the Java2 platform even on his older systems. You bet. I have to explain to people (or rather, explain away) why there was phraseology on the front of the mac Java page stating that the Mac was the best platform for developing java, exempli gratia, URL: http://developer.apple.com/devnews/devnews082997.html , ... the Mac OS is the best platform for developing Java products. This was so out of accord with reality, that I suspect that those people thought I must be soft in the head for not being able to work miracles with Java. No doubt, the Jobs RDF is so strong that in Cupertino a dual G4 Powermac can finish an infinite loop in 7 and a half seconds allowing its users to grab the best seats for Farmer MacGregor's Flying Circus. My point is that however undesirable, it is understandable that commercial organisations need to keep people upgrading. The reverse should be the case for OS software In our case the only issue is the cost of support, and since even niche products can be made essentially self-supporting, there should be no artifical limit established. Or do you look forward to a day when, say, vi (which is well past its use by date) in the form of its popular workalikes enter its EOL phase. I've found a notice in the ant documentation: For the current version of Ant, you will also need a JDK installed on your system, version 1.1 or later. A future version of Ant will require JDK 1.2 or later. Quite so. As time goes by more and more of the good stuff becomes (in my experience) JDK 1.3 or better, and obviously each of us will reach a point when we can no longer handle older platforms or protocols. Metrowerks has recently, for example, stopped delivering 68k Assemblers and Pascal compilers with its Mac desktop products. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide what the users of these tools felt about it. Ben.
Re: Lock generated PDF was Re: Security on FOP
On 02/05/02 3:08, ewitness - Ben Fowler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a question: with FOP, Is possible to lock with a password the PDF Document generated??? No. [ snip ] You will have to do some post-processing with other software. Is this something that is not implemented? Or something that is thought to be not possible or not desirable? As far as I know it's something that is beyond the capabilities of FOP and something that should stay there. My understanding is that is is possible to both digitally sign and encrypt PDF files. Using Acrobat you can do that and a lot more. However I don't think that's what Fop was designed for. You can always use Acrobat to polish a document produced with Fop. This is described in the 'ppk_pdfspec.pdf' downloadable. The fact that it is on the spec doesn't mean that it has to be implemented by Fop. Before worrying about encryption and digital signatures, Fop needs to achieve full conformance to the basic FO specification. Remember, Fop deals primarily with XSL:Fo and PDF is only one of the output methods. Is it known that digital signing needs some form of authorit not available to authors of FOP/Apache? No. If I understand it correctly you can sign your documents with any public/private key pair. Any cryptographic code may be subject to export restrictions from the US and maybe other restrictions from other countries If so, it should surely be still possible to encrypt/lock a document. Do I hear you volunteering to write the code to do it? Ben. -- Carlos E. Araya ---+ WebCT Administrator/Trainer P | California Virtual Campus - | C/O De Anza College G | 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd ---+ Cupertino, CA 95014 email [EMAIL PROTECTED] web http://www.cvc1.org/ (work) http://www.silverwolf-net.net (personal) phone 408 257 0420 (work) PGP Fingerprint:E629 5DFD 7EAE 4995 E9D7 3D2F 5A9F 0CE7 DFE7 1756 Do not meddle in the affairs of dragonsfor you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup and mayonnaise..
Re: Lock generated PDF was Re: Security on FOP
At 6:08 am -0800 5/2/02, Carlos Araya wrote: On 02/05/02 3:08, ewitness - Ben Fowler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My understanding is that is is possible to both digitally sign and encrypt PDF files. Using Acrobat you can do that and a lot more. However I don't think that's what Fop was designed for. You can always use Acrobat to polish a document produced with Fop. If it is outside the design domain for FOP, then we ought not to spend too much time on it. See below. I am actually quite keen to use a fully automated system, dispensing with the need for Acrobat, and actually locking the documnent (output from a database) against its author, as in non-repudiation. This is described in the 'ppk_pdfspec.pdf' downloadable. The fact that it is on the spec doesn't mean that it has to be implemented by Fop. Before worrying about encryption and digital signatures, Fop needs to achieve full conformance to the basic FO specification. Remember, Fop deals primarily with XSL:Fo and PDF is only one of the output methods. Fair enough, but if it is in an open spec. It is likely possible, which is what the OP was asking. I do of course agree that conformance, possibly full conformance to FO should be achieved before concentrating on minutiae such as this, which are probably only of interest to a minority. Standards conformance is in the interests of all. I think, though, that it is also true that the majority of people here have a greater interest in PDF than any other application of FOP. Furthermore there is already a high quality FO - TeX pathway, so I don't think that people would be inconvienced by an effort to 'polish' the PDF arm of this project. If so, it should surely be still possible to encrypt/lock a document. Do I hear you volunteering to write the code to do it? Yes. I am not sure that I will get started full before the end of February, but I intend to contribute to 1. Java 1.1.8 version 2. keep-with 3. Encryption All of those are things that I potentially need. Ben.
