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Raphael Quinet - Subject: Using GdkRgb is the best solution. Go for it! ( Oct 2, 2000, 12:35:07 )
I think that those who are flaming Raph Levien for considering to use GdkRgb
in GhostScript do not really understand what GdkRgb is, how GhostScript works
and what could be the consequences of using GdkRgb in gs.
1) GdkRgb is a part of GTK+ and GNOME, but this does not add any
requirements on your desktop. An application using GdkRgb will run
happily under KDE, GNOME, XFce, WindowMaker, fvwm, twm or whatever you like.
The application will run in exactly the same way, because GdkRgb is not even
aware of the environment in which it is used. So this will not tie gs to any
desktop environment.
2) You do not have to install GNOME if you do not want to..
I see several flames from people stating that they do not want to install
anything besides KDE on their system. Well, that's fine. You only need the
GdkRgb library and you can ignore everything else. This library is only a
small part of GNOME.
3) You do not have to install any GUI libraries if you do not want
to. If you run a print server and you do not want to install GTK+,
X11 or other GUI libraries, then it is fine too. If you are only interested
in the gs output for some printers but not for the screen, then you can
compile gs without X11. This is already done today in most Linux distributions:
they provide two versions of gs. I don't think that it would change if gs uses
GdbRgb for screen output.
4) GdkRgb should really be in GhostScript (gs), not in the front-end
(GhostView).. Those who claim that GdkRgb should only be linked to
GhostView and not to gs do not understand how GhostScript works: basically,
the rendering is done in gs, not in ghostview (or kghostview, or other
front-ends). And this is where GdkRgb is needed, because it provides a
high-quality rendering to the screen. The various front-ends to gs provide
some buttons and other GUI elements around the rendering window but they do not
(should not) care about how the rendering is done and what libraries are used
internally by gs. So the front-ends like kghostview can still exist and
provide their own native widgets around the gs output.
5) GdkRgb provides the best output for an X display; let's not
reinvent the wheel. As stated in the open letter, GdkRgb provides a
high performance, high quality display of RGB data to the X display. This is
probably the best solution available for the moment and it is already used by
many applications, so it would be a waste of time to re-write the code or to
fork it into an separate gs version (and also to maintain the gs version if
GdkRgb is improved). Refusing to use the best solution for unfounded political
reasons is a bit stupid, IMHO. The library is free (GPL), it works well and it
is already included in most distributions anyway.
The open letter contains many statements that should have made this clear.
Raph also states that he remains "fully committed to wide cross-platform
development for the Ghostscript core" so I think that all these flames are
misdirected.
