Hi,
to focus on the PDF form handling:
Am Freitag 31 Januar 2020 17:29:18 schrieb Paul Boddie:
Having been sent a PDF form that needed completing, I rediscovered the apparent lack of support in Free Software applications for performing this task.
I ended up with the feeling that it would not be possible to perform an important task using Free Software. No amount of advocacy would remedy this situation.
An example to the contrary: The tax authority of the German state "Lower Saxony" (almost 8 Million inhabitants) is using GNU/Linux desktops in about 12,000 workplaces. Now the current government coalition plans to switch to Windows, this is political and can be influenced by advocay. As documented on our public German speaking FSFE list, it is unclear how this change came to be, probably advocay from the different direction, see the threat (in German): https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/fsfe-de/2018-August/010390.html
This public tax authority contracted my company Intevation a few years ago to improve form handling in a few aspects in okular (and the libraries it is using), which we did. The connection is: If they were planning to use okular even longer, they would contract more improvements to PDF handling. They don't because of the political process of being forced to go to Windows.
Am Dienstag 11 Februar 2020 23:22:59 schrieb Paul Boddie:
For all I know, my experience was based on a misunderstanding
PDF is not a good format, in my view. There are several different ways of handling form elements and the ability to embed some active javascript elements is not a good choice for an open standard for simple forms. PDF also does not adhere to the "minimal principle" (https://fsfe.org/activities/os/minimalisticstandards.en.html).
So "misunderstandings" are likely, computer usage is complicated and just getting to understand what would be a good next step for which user group requires a lot of effort to begin with.
It is hard work to "track" what the proprietary developers of the PDF format do and it needs people that do this for years, which means they need to be financed. We at Intevation were toying with how this can be done a few time, but haven't found something promissing yet. Maybe a crowd-funding for some features? But the work can probably not be estimated well enough. A pay-as-you-want windows build of okular? Maybe, but it needs serious time invest and expertise.
The problem is: Getting somewhere with better form handling in PDF, we are not looking at a 20 k€ project, but it would need years with funding around 200 k€ per year or more to get somewhere.
Best Regards, Bernhard Disclaimer: As co-owner of Intevation I have a "commercial" interest to help making more Free Software (that is the only software we make) and earn a living and pay my employees as fair as I can. (It should be obvious from this post, but just in case. ;) )