Re: libgd-perl moving to PNG

[David Huggins-Daines <dhd@eradicator.org>]

On Sun, Dec 05, 1999 at 05:48:44PM -0500, Ben Pfaff wrote:
> There's no good reason for libgd-perl to be in non-free, that I
> can see.  The current bad reason for libgd-perl to be in non-free
> is that it uses libgd from non-free (which would actually place

No, it doesn't actually.  It uses its own internal copy of the libgd (GIF)
sources.  Part of the reason for moving to a newer version is that newer
versions are able to link against the system's libgd library instead of
compiling in their own version.

This internal version does LZW compression, unfortunately.  However, we
could update it to match our current (free) libgd-gif1 package.

This is obviously not what the upstream author wants, and if we do this, our
package will remain several versions behind indefinitely.

> libgd-perl in contrib, go figure).  For its part, libgd is in
> non-free because *older versions* had LZW compression code.

libgd is not in non-free.  Even before the one I just uploaded (1.7.3), it
was already in main.

> Newer versions of libgd use run-length compression instead, which
> is not patented.

No, they produce PNG instead of GIF.  However there's libgd-gif now, which
is probably what you're thinking of.  It's an older version of GD, after
the removal of LZW but before the switch to PNG.

> IMO, the proper solution is to release a libgd that supports
> *BOTH* GIF and PNG, and I see no reason why this shouldn't or
> couldn't be done.

It would be a fork.  The upstream author most definitely won't do it.

However, he also doesn't believe in building GD as a shared library, and we
do that anyway :)

-- 
< james>  overfiend: I am not an autobuilder, I am a human being