[Gs-devel] Gnu Ghostscript

[Raph Levien]

Hi Ghostscripters,

   I'm in the process of putting together the GNU Ghostscript 6.51
release. For the most part, this release will just be what's in the
GS_6_5 branch of CVS, with the addition of hpijs and Omni drivers.
(I'm preparing those for checkin now).

   There are at least two large patches out there that are relevant to
the 6.51 release: the gs-cjk project (http://www.gyve.org/gs-cjk/),
and the Ghostscript stp drivers (from the Gimp-Print project). I've
been struggling a bit with what to do with these, and have
provisionally decided not to include them in the Ghostscript release.
At the same time, I'd like to encourage distributors to incorporate
these patches, as they are very useful enhancements.

   This brings up some some deeper questions about how the GPL branch
of Ghostscript should be handled. Ultimately, it would be nice for
there to be no branch, but at least for now there is one. While the
AFPL branch is where the active development is happening, it's also
important to keep the GPL branch well maintained.

   One approach to this issue is the "ESP Ghostscript" project of
Michael Sweet (http://sourceforge.net/projects/espgs/). The GPL
absolutely grants the right to fork the release in this way, but I
personally think it would be a better use of resources to work
together on the GNU releases. For one, I think it would help to
coordinate bug finding and fixing a lot better than is happening.
Also, I sense some duplication of effort in adding new features. An
especially notable area is ICC profile support. Ghostscript 7.00 has
ICC color profile support for PDF inputs, and we're working on adding
ICC profiles for output. Having a completely separate ICC
implementation in the 6.50 branch just seems like a bad idea.

   I don't really have a solution here, so your comments and
suggestions would be most welcome. I guess an ideal scenario would be
to have a volunteer step forward for the job of Gnu Ghostscript
maintainer. I see this role as quite analogous to that of a Debian
maintainer. Note that, in most cases, the Debian maintainer is a
different person than the primary author of the package. Aside from
doing periodic releases, one of the primary responsibilities would be
sending appropriate bugs upstream, and helping merge the trees when
major releases of Ghostscript go from AFPL to GPL. The "Gnu maintiner"
would also have discretion about integrating GPL patches.

   In the mean time, if you have any issues in the GS_6_5 branch you'd
like to be resolved before the 6.51 release, now would be a good time
to bring them up.

Raph