FS#6222 - Change to Ghostscript GPL or add support for it.

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Jon (SchaduwBlink) - Monday, 15 January 2007, 17:37 GMT
Last edited by Eric Belanger (Snowman) - Saturday, 13 October 2007, 20:59 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages: Current
Status Closed
Assigned To dorphell (dorphell)
Jan de Groot (JGC)
Eric Belanger (Snowman)
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version 0.7.2 Gimmick
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

This is my first bug report, so I apologize if this is in the wrong Category. This seemed like the best choice.

I would like to request that Ghostscript GPL, which can be found here: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ , can be used instead of Ghostscript-esp (currently used) for packages requiring Ghostscript. I am a long time user of Ghostscript-AFPL, and the GPL version is based on that. In fact, it's the development branch of AFPL.

My reasoning. I find that the AFPL/GPL version is updated a lot more than the ESP version. There are more features and the enhanced printer support is in the GPL version that the ESP has. So, there is no loss in switching over to the GPL version. Also, the ESP version is developed off of a very old version of Ghostscript-AFPL. Ghostscript-GPL is at version 8.54, while ESP is at 8.15 and there is a lot of difference between the versions. In general, the GPL version is just better.

I hope you can consider this request and add the GPL version to the database and have the programs requiring Ghostscript either depend on this version or depend on either version. THe GPL version is a drop in replacement, so I do not believe that programs need to be recompiled against the GPL version, but I do not know for sure. If they do, they to be frank, they get linked against a better Ghostscript. In fact, most distriptions of Linux have switched over to the GPL version since the ESP version is so far behind it.

Thanks,
Jon
This task depends upon

Closed by  Eric Belanger (Snowman)
Saturday, 13 October 2007, 20:59 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Additional comments about closing:  ghostscript 8.60-1 is now the GPL version as both ESP and GPL has merged in that version
Comment by Jon (SchaduwBlink) - Tuesday, 16 January 2007, 02:48 GMT
After I filed this report, I went to the forums and saw a user made PKGBUILD for the gpl version. I helped out the person by submitting some patches. I do not know a lot about ABS scripting yet, so I was not able to do anything fancy. Just some basic stuff. Here is a link to the forum topic:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=28819

I hope a dev can take this and and make it even better. I know there are some more advanced things you can do with the file, I just don't know how.

Cheers
Comment by Jon (SchaduwBlink) - Tuesday, 16 January 2007, 05:44 GMT
Here is the work that was done in that forum link. This is the PKGBUILD with the patches. A couple patches fix serious bugs, like a segfault. Some of the patches have made it into the SVN.

To build Ghostscript-gpl, you need to have gtk installed. I included a patch that allows it to be built with GTK2. GTK2 is better. :P However, I do not know if this is a build time dependency, or a runtime one. If it is build time only, then you can move the depend on gtk2 to the makedepends. I decided to error on the side of caution.

It builds and runs with these patches just fine. I hope you can make use of this.

Jon
   ghostscript-gpl.tar.gz (7.9 KiB)
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Tuesday, 16 January 2007, 11:08 GMT
So, does cups still print with the foomatic ppds with the GPL ghostscript?
Comment by Jon (SchaduwBlink) - Tuesday, 16 January 2007, 22:19 GMT
I have only used GPL Ghostscript on other systems and cups has worked fine with that. The one thing I am not sure of is if a program depending on ghostscript needs to be recompiled or not. I don't think so, but all the programs I have used have been compiled with the GPL version, well ... the AFPL version and then the GPL version, which is the same code just rebranded. Just in case, it would be possible to rename the esp version in Arch to ghostscript-esp, and have the gpl version in there as ghostscript-gpl. Though, most distros are solely using the gpl version right now, but certain apps may truely need the esp version. The only programs I use that need ghostscript are: kghostview, kpdf, cups, and KDE print preview (calls ghostscript to not have to call cups). That's my experience and my experience may be different than another person's.

I am not trying to sound like that the esp version is bad, so forgive me if I did sound that way. It is just that I read up that the gpl version is better and has more features to it. I started using the afpl version awhile back, because I could not print preview with the esp version, so I switched and it worked. I do not know how much development goes into either version, but I know that the gpl version is actively developed still. I still read about linux and related topics and I have just read that the gpl version is more featureful. I requested this bug topic because I swear by the afpl/gpl version. :P My side may be a bit one sided, but I hope that the professionals in the industry are not one sided when they talk about the comparisons of the two.

My system has a HP printer, so I use the hplip, which has the hpijs foomatic files in it and it has worked.

Thanks for reading. :)
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Friday, 22 June 2007, 19:22 GMT
Ghostscript 8.5x has been released as GPL instead of the AFPL. This gives extra freedom, which means ESP GS has been merged into Ghostscript 8.57. The forked esp-ghostscript no longer exists. Expect a move to GPL Ghostscript in a while that fully supports CUPS.

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