[Info-vax] OpenVMS printing to PDF

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-05-19 00:34:21 +0000, David Froble said:

> Correction, decent tools for Postscript and PDF are not distributed 
> with VMS.  At least in my mind an OS should have no knowledge of such 
> tools, and therefore doesn't support them as such.  Now, if "support" 
> indicates that tools will run on a particular OS, well, that's another 
> definition.

We differ, then.   RTF and PDF and the Microsoft Office formats are now 
typical file formats that get passed around, and something that 
integrated and add-on applications are expected to deal with.  That 
means that there's either add-on software, or there's integrated 
software.

I've done the piecemeal configuration work for far too long with 
OpenVMS, and the ever-lengthening list of dependencies and the hassles 
involved in integrating and testing all the different permutations 
gets... hairy.   I much prefer a package that has already been tested, 
and particularly when I can shut off unnecessary services, but can 
easily enable and use the services that are necessary, and all without 
having to do my own installation and integration work.  If some service 
is later needed, it can be easily enabled and started.

Other folks are fond of a stripped-down and minimal and embedded server 
environment, and a menu of pieces and parts that are added.  In older 
OpenVMS terms, some of these configurations are even tailored.  In 
others, they start absolutely minimally, and are then purpose-built.   
But these stripped down and embedded configurations are harder to 
program and administer and maintain and patch, and are harder to 
distribute for particularly when you're not dealing with a dedicated 
server; when you have to operate with other environments and tools.  
You get to maintain all of what you've added, and watch for security 
updates and bug fixes and the rest.

The OpenVMS integration of some of the more common add-on pieces and 
packages can vary, too.   It's often not at all OpenVMS-like for those 
that are fond of that, and end-users then have to deal with how  the 
package is installed, integrated, maintained and/or patched.  For 
examples of where these issues tend to appear to end-user folks, 
OpenSSL, CDSA, LDAP and Kerberos and other pieces are not particularly 
integrated into OpenVMS, and not how I'd prefer to see OpenVMS support 
encryption and certificates and distributed security.  It'd be nice if 
there was one certificate store, for instance.   All of these pieces 
are necessary for security in many environments.  But they're not 
particularly integrated with OpenVMS and its applications and layered 
products.

Much like having embedded security features within OpenVMS (and 
hopefully, embedded TLS support across the various common tools and 
applications, but I digress), having embedded support for RTF and PDF 
and other such formats means there are fewer things to deal with, and I 
can spend more time on my applications and less time on supporting 
common infrastructure.

What I'm "whining" about here are increasingly considered "table 
stakes" for operating systems, too.  The stuff that new users can 
expect to have available.


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