On Tuesday 31 October 2000 05:41, Ben Reser wrote:
| On Tue, Oct 31, 2000 at 01:32:48AM +0000, Luis Alves wrote:
| > ghostscript 6.0.1 can read pdf files from version 4 of adobe acrobat
| > as all postscript level 3 implemented, can convert
| > files to pdf with the fonts problem resolved.
| >
| > can some body tell me why is the version still 5.5.
|
| I believe it's a licensing issue. IIRC ghostscript isn't GPL anymore and
| uses a license the requires permission to distribute "commercialy" (e.g. a
| commercial distribution such as Mandrake). And I think they only give such
| permission for a couple versions back from the current one. But I may be
| wrong.
Ben, if you are correct with reasons, I can suggest following:
1) put GhostScript 6.0 in Cooker.
everybody can download it from Cooker for Free
2) do not include 6.0 in commercial releases of Mandrake (like one sold in
Walmart :-). Just put 5.5 inside with notice:
"you can download latest version of Ghostscript, 6.0, from Mandrake Cooker
for free. It is free upgrade. Connection costs may apply"
P.S. GhostScript ws the first program which I saw on UNIX. I can say it
opened my eyes to UNIX world. I believe it was 1992 or 1993. And Sun
SparcStation 1 (?2). It will be a pity if such programs become commercial,
Unix/Linux will loose its face in long-term.
--
Vadim Plessky
http://kde2.newmail.ru (English)
http://kde2.newmail.ru/index_rus.html (Russian)
