Adobe PDF to Become an ISO Standard

Adobe has previously given software developers a royalty free license to use the PDF standard. This allowed anyone to use the standard, but Adobe had total control over any changes to the format. Today Adobe will relinquish control of the format to AIIM, the Enterprise Content Management Association, for publication by ISO (International Organization for Standardization). This was allegedly driven by some governments' resistance to adopt proprietary file formats. Because Adobe controlled the format it was considered proprietary.