what does Adobe think of PHP-generated PDFs?

it is, after all, a proprietary format

[httpwebwitch]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think it merits a new discussion.

I've been making PDFs with PHP. Many of us do. Does anyone know what Adobe thinks of that? Have they ever released any comments regarding unlicenced use of their proprietary format?

A few years back, Compuserve made a real stink about its patent on GIF compression. GIF images were so ubiquitous, many assumed it was just a non-patented generic graphics format. At the time, geek media pundits were saying we'd all have to start using PNGs, or start paying licence fees to Compuserve.

Is this a similar situation, and are we going to get busted for reverse-engineering Adobe's Portable Document Format?

[uncle_bob]

Pdf's are not reverse engineered.

Adobe publishes the PDF specification to encourage the development of such third-party applications

Search for 'pdf specification' if you want to read more, direct from the horses (adobe) mouth.