[Desktop_printing] Ghostscript leading edge is now GPL!

[Till Kamppeter]

Great news!

So I think we (mainly the GhostScript team, Mike Sweet, me) must plan
now how to make the GhostScript for the future distributions.

Some ideas:

- Move all modifications done in ESP GhostScript into the HEAD branch of
  upstream GhostScript.

- Drivers added to ESP GHostScript are probably not very difficult to
  move over, as they are in the addons/ directory of ESP GhostScript
  (http://svn.easysw.com/public/espgs/trunk/addons/). This directory can
  be easily excluded for commercial builds.

- The "cups" backend should go into a cups/ directory which also should
  be easy to exclude for commercial builds.

- Later on, the drivers in the addons/ directory (or nearly all built-in
  drivers of GhostScript) should be decoupled from the core GhostScript,
  for example by making one or more OpenPrinting vector driver modules
  carrying these drivers. For that a piece of code needs to be developed
  which on one end plugs into the "opvp" backend of GhostScript and on
  the other end offers the internal driver API for GhostScript's
  built-in drivers. This way (often unmaintained) legacy drivers do not
  need to be adapted to changes in the internal API of GhostScript. Also
  if there are third-party drivers with questionable license we will
  have no problems any more. The new GhostScript developer could perhaps
  also work on that.

- Bug fixes done in ESP GhostScript must be checked whether they have to
  be done also in upstream GhostScript.

- Open bugs of ESP GhostScript (http://www.cups.org/espgs/str.php)
  should be checked and merged into upstream GhostScript's Bugzilla.

- It would be nice if the developers and contributors of ESP GhostScript
  (Mike Sweet, me, Epson Avasys, ...) get commit access to the CVS or
  Subversion of upstream GhostScript.

WDYT?

   Till


Bastian, Waldo wrote:
> Some nice news on the ghostscript front. Ghostscript used to have a
> staged release process where new releases where first released under the
> AFPL and only after a year under the GPL. This approach led to a fork by
> people who needed to get patches in the GPL version. It’s great to see
> that this has been resolved.
> 
>  
> 
> See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=411
> 
>  
> 
> Waldo Bastian
> 
> Linux Client Architect - Client Linux Foundation Technology
> 
> Channel Platform Solutions Group
> 
> Intel Corporation - http://www.intel.com/go/linux
> 
> OSDL DTL Tech Board Chairman