In a press release dated July 2, 2008, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced that Adobe has relinquished control of the PDF format to ISO:

The Portable Document Format (PDF), undeniably one of the most commonly used formats for electronic documents, is now accessible as an ISO International Standard – ISO 32000-1. This move follows a decision by Adobe Systems Incorporated, original developer and copyright owner of the format, to relinquish control to ISO, who is now in charge of publishing the specifications for the current version (1.7) and for updating and developing future versions.

“By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardization, we are reinforcing our commitment to openness", says Kevin Lynch, Chief Technology Officer at Adobe. "As governments and organizations increasingly request open formats, maintenance of the PDF specification by an external and participatory organization will help continue to drive innovation and expand the rich PDF ecosystem that has evolved over the past 15 years.”

ISO 32000-1:2008 is now available to order.

I think this is a good move that Adobe has made.  PDF is almost the de facto standard for sharing information in a wide range of industries, including CAD.  We use PDF for our released drawings; they are easy to share, and provide a modicum of security.  And with the 3D PDF capability, you can now share 3D data more easily.

What do you think?  What is everyone else using to share CAD data?

Via Chris Pirillo

Edited on 7/3/08