DRM in PDF readers
Hello,
I recently adopted pdftohtml, a program to translate PDF documents into
HTML. It is a derivative of xpdf. I am now asked to override the DRM
tests (current code checks for "don't copy me" pdf flag and aborts if
set).
It is easy patching to disable this but in the course of the bug report
(<http://bugs.debian.org/298584>) xpdf author, Derek B. Noonburg, raised
his hand: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=298584#msg22
This is basically the same as his official statement available on
<http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/cracking.html>
Hamish Moffatt, xpdf maintainer, then told me about the discussion
when he was asked to disable DRM checks:
<http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/03/msg00862.html>
and this particular email:
<http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/03/msg00927.html>
He also writes:
Frederic, you may open this discussion again on debian-devel or
debian-legal if you wish, especially wrt pdftohtml. I think consistency
between PDF reading applications would be good.
I'm all for consistency, I quickly checked PDF readers (all of them
based on xpdf code) to see if they bypassed DRM settings:
upstream debian
-------- ------
evince yes yes
gpdf yes yes
kpdf yes yes
pdftohtml no no
viewpdf.app[1] yes yes
xpdf[2] no yes
[1] by mean of pdfkit.framework
[2] includes pdftotext
My current idea is to default to upstream behaviour and implements an
option to override the settings but I would like to have some comments
on the "DRM-in-Debian" situation.
Frederic
[CC:
evince maintainer: Sebastien Bacher <seb128@debian.org>
gpdf maintainer: Filip Van Raemdonck <mechanix@debian.org>
kpdf maintainer: debian-qt-kde@lists.debian.org
viewpdf.app maintainer: Gürkan Sengün <gurkan@linuks.mine.nu>
xpdf maintainer: Hamish Moffatt <hamish@debian.org>
xpdf author: Derek B. Noonburg <derekn@foolabs.com>
]
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