Spyware Sucks

Y'know, this stuff really makes me mad sometimes.

Microsoft to pull PDF, XPS support from Office 2007 because Adobe chucked a hissy fit and threatened to sue - instead, we'll have to download separate software to retain the ability - Adobe wanted MS to charge us a fee for the separate download.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/02/78913_HNpdfout_1.html

Fine Adobe, if you want to play it that way, go for it. I still won't install your products to generate PDFs from Word. I'll continue on with PrimoPDF thanks.   Nor will I install your reader or the Yahoo rubbish that is bundled with it.

Do we see Adobe threatening to sue those behind PrimoPDF? No. 

Do we see Adobe threatening to sue those behind any of the other free PDF generators out there? pdf995? cutepdf? pdfcreator?

Adobe posted an open standard for creating PDFs - open standard means use it for free. It doesn't mean sue somebody who takes advantage of the standard or try to force them to charge for products based on same. 

Update: Brian Jones says "I'm still trying to figure that one out given that PDF is usually viewed as an open standard and there are other office suites out there that already support PDF output. I don't see us providing functionality that's any different from what others are doing {snip} This is also surprising to me given that certain governments have viewed PDF as being more open than Open XML, yet Open XML is now proceeding through Ecma and there is a clear commitment from Microsoft that it will not sue anyone for using the formats {snip} If you're like me and think this is just a bad thing all around, you should let them know."

Ok, so first of all we don't know whether or not OpenOffice, StarOffice or Apple paid Adobe anything to be allowed to include a save as PDF ability.

Y'know Adobe's behaviour sits right up there with Google complaining about IE7's search pane - thankfully *that* dummy spit didn't go anywhere.