Hi Harry,
Thank you for your response to my earlier e-mails. Nothing has
changed in the Adobe position.
The IETF and ITU use of TIFF in RFC 2301 and T.37 is out-of-scope of
the license we granted to each organization. Other than use under
this license, the ITU and IETF may not use TIFF. Likewise, the IEEE
may not use TIFF to develop new standards without a license from
Adobe.
This license granted to the IETF restricts IETF use in several ways.
Two examples of these require use to be based on a published TIFF
specification and not to inhibit future Adobe use. I must refer you
to the license granted the IETF for a complete listing of the
requirements. RFC 2301 and T.37 fall outside the scope of these.
A technical result of their efforts being outside-the-scope of the
license is that TIFF and TIFF FX are not interoperable (in all but
the 'S' profile).
IEEE selection/adoption/propagation of TIFF FX would promote/endorse
an IETF document that is out-of-scope of the license Adobe granted
the IETF and ITU. Regarding a potential license that Adobe could
offer the IEEE, Adobe would most likely consider a similar license to
the one granted the IETF and ITU. Note that this would only allow
the IEEE to develop TIFF based standards that were interoperable with
a published version of TIFF.
Sincerely,
Scott Foshee
Adobe Image and Video Standards
>Scott, as you are aware, the ISTO Printer Working Group is standardizing
>an application of IPP which is intended to perform similar to the current
>"FAX" paradigm with the addition of capabilities matching and status which
>the IPP protocol permits. To assure a high degree of interoperability a
>"universal" (image) format is required. We recognized that TIFF-FX will
>meet our image requirements. As IPP is an IETF standard we felt it natural
>(and proper) to consider TIFF-FX for IPP-Fax.
>
>Can you summarize the current status of licensing for TIFF-FX from Adobe's
>point of view? From your perspective, will there be any problem with
>IPP-Fax specifying TIFF-FX as the universal format? In the past you have
>indicated that this may require a separate request for licence from the
>PWG. Can you please indicate if you still feel this is necessary and, if
>so, what type of licence is Adobe likely to consider?
>----------------------------------------------
>Harry Lewis
>Chairman - ISTO Printer Working Group
>IBM Printing Systems
>----------------------------------------------
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