>Well, as a NeXTSTEP user, I'd like to note that Adobe hasn't yet seen a
>business need to support Acrobat/NS -- creating a market niche that not one,
>not two, but _four_ products [1] have rushed in to fill.
>... and _none_ of them can work with secured PDF. One of the developers
>intimated that this was because the enncryption techniques were not openly
>available; that it was only licensable from Adobe. Many of ODF documents on
>the web, including many with WebLinks, are so encrypted, and inacessible.
Due to limitations in resources as well as business priorities, we do have to
prioritize development, as you probably understand. One of our intentions in
publishing (and publicizing) PDF was to foster the creation of niche
opportunities.
The encryption technique used in Acrobat is licensed from RSA Security and may
be licensed by others as well, from what I understand. More information on them
is available from
http://www.rsa.com
I realize that the topic of licensed algorithms in general is hotly debated. We
decided not to invent our own.
Gary Cosimini