I have used libgd for lots of graphics;  writing text on images
made by other programs, for example.   Big investment.  The 
library works when dynamically linked, but I get a raft of errors
when I try to statically link it.  Still investigating that.  

In 2007, the original author Thomas Boutell passed version 2.0.33
on to the PHP folks, to be maintained at www.libgd.org .  About a
year of activity, then nothing, development stopped at 2.0.36RC.
with a release candidate that never released.  Sounds like my
code :-(  

Unfortunately, a lot of other packages, like gnuplot, pstoedit,
and inkscape depend on libgd.  If libgd dies of dependency
failure, so do they.

And now, www.libgd.org is down.  I haven't looked at it for a
few months.  I'm guessing the reason relates to this headline
from www.php.net:

> php.net security notice
> [19-Mar-2011]
> 
> The wiki.php.net box was compromised and the attackers were
> able to collect wiki account credentials. No other machines
> in the php.net infrastructure appear to have been affected.
> Our biggest concern is, of course, the integrity of our source
> code. We did an extensive code audit and looked at every commit
> since 5.3.5 to make sure that no stolen accounts were used to
> inject anything malicious. Nothing was found. The compromised
> machine has been wiped and we are forcing a password change
> for all svn accounts.
> 
> We are still investigating the details of the attack which
> combined a vulnerability in the Wiki software with a Linux
> root exploit.

I assume the PHP wiki software was written in PHP, the public
bathhouse orgy of programming languages.  But then so is
mediawiki.  Yikes!  I suppose I ought to ask a question about
now.  Here goes:

   libgd is not getting developed.  Its dependencies may be
   depreciating.  What function libraries are people using
   to synthesize 2-D images these days?  ImageMagick? 

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [email protected]         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
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