This techcast episode features the open source PDF API developer Bruno Lowagie. His iText library has been used by many Java developers. One of the earier open-source Java APIs, iText was originally written to provide PDF version 1.3-compliant output. This was not the first API that Bruno created to handle PDF, as we’ll hear in the interview, and also not the first to be open-sourced.
We’ll hear how Bruno has participated in the PDF specification, has worked with various document management concerns including encryption, forms processing, and long-term archiving of PDF document formats. One very interesting section concerns how he approached licensing, and some of the challenges faced by developers when they are looking at dealing with open-source users versus paying clients, and how that informs the decisions of his company has he moves the library forward.
For information about the iText library, in both the commercial and open-source licensed versions, you can visit itextpdf.com.