[reportlab-users] adding a digital signature when generating a pdf

[Jorge Godoy]

"Andy Robinson" <andy at reportlab.com> writes:


> The reason there are no free solutions is that (a) it's a lot of work,

> and (b) if it's free then there is no return on the time invested!


Oh well...  The last reason isn't true...  Take a look at how much was
invested in Linux, OpenOffice.org, KDE, Gnome, Python, Perl, R, etc.

Return is something *very* relative.  And it might even be considered
financial return since the project leaders of the above project sooner
or later got contacted to work for some company that would benefit from
their work and would pay their bills... 


> Last time I looked, we estimated it would take a few months work and

> would involve dealing with a number of different signature systems

> from different vendors, many of whom charge money for the

> specifications.  It's also much harder doing the first open source

> implementation, as there are no working references to, er, study.


With this I agree.  I'd start with the most common and free specs, as an
initial release and then let other people / companies add the paid
"specs" or simply say: "do you want it?  if you buy the spec then we can
start with it, you'll also have to wait X days/months."


> As always, if someone wants this badly and is willing to implement it,

> we would happily work with them and include the feature; and if an

> organisation needs it for a project, we could quote for that work.


I hope some organization needs it and allows it being released as open
source. ;-) 

-- 
Jorge Godoy      <jgodoy at gmail.com>