Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Great, I will start updating PDFBox to use the FOrayFont, I believe this will go pretty smoothly because FOrayFont is already being used for PDF creation. More details on the FOray list. We have had some recent discussions about supported JRE's, from the main page of FOray[1] it says that 1.4 is used. There is a desire among the FOP developers to maintain compatibility with 1.3. Do you know if FOrayFont compatible with 1.3? Actually I haven't taken care of this issue yet. I'm hoping that it won't be too difficult to make it 1.3-compliant, we only use basic classes of the standard library. My goal is to first have it accepted in Fop, and then do what is necessary to achieve 1.3 compliance (actually, if someone else would volounteer to take care of that last step, even better ;-) ) Vincent
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Great, I will start updating PDFBox to use the FOrayFont, I believe this will go pretty smoothly because FOrayFont is already being used for PDF creation. More details on the FOray list. We have had some recent discussions about supported JRE's, from the main page of FOray[1] it says that 1.4 is used. There is a desire among the FOP developers to maintain compatibility with 1.3. Do you know if FOrayFont compatible with 1.3? Ben [1]http://foray.sourceforge.net/ > Hi Ben, hi All, > > I finally have some time to chime in, sorry for the delay. Thank you for > your interest in the font subsystem. > > My goal is to adapt the FOrayFont library to Fop. The main advantage of > FOrayFont over the Fop code is its ability to directly parse font files, > whereas currently with Fop there is a two-step process: first convert > the font metrics into an xml file, then use it within Fop through a > configuration file. You can have the process in [1]. > > I've submitted a first patch in december [2], that was refused because > of unacceptable shortcomings of FOrayFont. The main reasons were: > * lack of a default config file; > * configuration too complicated. > You will find all the details in [3]. Since that I'm working with Victor > on FOrayFont's improvement. We have recently ended the design phase and > have agreed on a set of changes that I still have to apply (you will > find the discussion on the FOray-dev mailing list archive from the last > two months. I'll add more on this on FOray-dev.). After that I believe > that the main shortcomings will be corrected and that an updated patch > can be submitted. > > PDFBox is pretty independant of my work. I currently rely entirely on > the Fop PDF library for PDF outputs, and I'm only adapting necessary > things to make it use FOrayFont. FOrayFont is a low-level library that > tries to be independent of any output format, and thus may be used by > whatever renderer. So if PDFBox were to be used by Fop, for me it would > just mean that I would have to adapt PDFBox instead of the Fop library. > > For FontBox this is different, and I think there is a possibility to > share resources in this area. I'll put more details on FOray-dev, but in > short it would be great if we could achieve the following: > * merge the best of FontBox and FOrayFont to obtain a good font library; > * agree on a common interface (i.e., an API) for the font library, that >would be used conjointly by Fop, PDFBox and FOray; > * adapt PDFBox to make it use this resulting library; > * make it work with Fop in some manner. > > I would like to work with you on the two first points. As you have > probably already noticed the discussion will be mainly held in the FOray > area. We will chime in here for Fop-specific things and to notify Fop > devs of advancements of the adaptation work. > > I'm glad to see that there is place for collaboration. I'm sure that we > will be able to achieve Great Things ;-) > > Cheers, > Vincent > > > Current way to configure fonts in Fop: > [1] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/trunk/fonts.html > > Patch for the adaptation of FOrayFont to Fop (now outdated): > [2] http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35948 > > Reasons of the patch refusal: > [3] > http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xmlgraphics-fop- dev/200512.mbox/browser > > > > Ben Litchfield a écrit : > > Jeremias, > > > > I'll start by answering your questions > > > > 1)What is minimum JDK required by PDFBox? > > > > PDFBox currently requires 1.4, because it uses ImageIO and a couple > > other things that make development much easier. PDFBox was compatible > > with 1.3 for a long time, but I made a decision that sticking with 1.3 > > would cost too much in development time versus using existing stuff in > > 1.4. In addition 1.3 is now two major versions old and in the EOL > > phase. As this effort will take some time before it could be released > > would it be reasonable to move the minimum requirement up to 1.4 for > > Batik and FOP at that time? > > > > 2)Does PDFBox require log4j? > > > > PDFBox used to be dependent on log4j, 0.7.2 has an optional dependency, > > the soon to be released 0.7.3 version will not use log4j at all. > > Currently PDFBox's only dependency is FontBox(see comments below), > > although bouncy castle will soon become an optional dependency for > > certificate based encryption and rhino(looks like Batik uses this as > > well) will also be an optional dependency for Javascript execution. > > > > > > Some additional comments, > > *After the 0.7.2 release, PDFBox split the font infrastructure into > > another project, so aptly named FontBox. No official version has been > > released yet but the project was created and all font parsing logic was > > separated from PDFBox. As far as I can tell there is no open source > > font library and for many of the same reasons we have discussed I > > thought it would b
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Hi Ben, hi All, I finally have some time to chime in, sorry for the delay. Thank you for your interest in the font subsystem. My goal is to adapt the FOrayFont library to Fop. The main advantage of FOrayFont over the Fop code is its ability to directly parse font files, whereas currently with Fop there is a two-step process: first convert the font metrics into an xml file, then use it within Fop through a configuration file. You can have the process in [1]. I've submitted a first patch in december [2], that was refused because of unacceptable shortcomings of FOrayFont. The main reasons were: * lack of a default config file; * configuration too complicated. You will find all the details in [3]. Since that I'm working with Victor on FOrayFont's improvement. We have recently ended the design phase and have agreed on a set of changes that I still have to apply (you will find the discussion on the FOray-dev mailing list archive from the last two months. I'll add more on this on FOray-dev.). After that I believe that the main shortcomings will be corrected and that an updated patch can be submitted. PDFBox is pretty independant of my work. I currently rely entirely on the Fop PDF library for PDF outputs, and I'm only adapting necessary things to make it use FOrayFont. FOrayFont is a low-level library that tries to be independent of any output format, and thus may be used by whatever renderer. So if PDFBox were to be used by Fop, for me it would just mean that I would have to adapt PDFBox instead of the Fop library. For FontBox this is different, and I think there is a possibility to share resources in this area. I'll put more details on FOray-dev, but in short it would be great if we could achieve the following: * merge the best of FontBox and FOrayFont to obtain a good font library; * agree on a common interface (i.e., an API) for the font library, that would be used conjointly by Fop, PDFBox and FOray; * adapt PDFBox to make it use this resulting library; * make it work with Fop in some manner. I would like to work with you on the two first points. As you have probably already noticed the discussion will be mainly held in the FOray area. We will chime in here for Fop-specific things and to notify Fop devs of advancements of the adaptation work. I'm glad to see that there is place for collaboration. I'm sure that we will be able to achieve Great Things ;-) Cheers, Vincent Current way to configure fonts in Fop: [1] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/trunk/fonts.html Patch for the adaptation of FOrayFont to Fop (now outdated): [2] http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=35948 Reasons of the patch refusal: [3] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/xmlgraphics-fop-dev/200512.mbox/browser Ben Litchfield a écrit : Jeremias, I'll start by answering your questions 1)What is minimum JDK required by PDFBox? PDFBox currently requires 1.4, because it uses ImageIO and a couple other things that make development much easier. PDFBox was compatible with 1.3 for a long time, but I made a decision that sticking with 1.3 would cost too much in development time versus using existing stuff in 1.4. In addition 1.3 is now two major versions old and in the EOL phase. As this effort will take some time before it could be released would it be reasonable to move the minimum requirement up to 1.4 for Batik and FOP at that time? 2)Does PDFBox require log4j? PDFBox used to be dependent on log4j, 0.7.2 has an optional dependency, the soon to be released 0.7.3 version will not use log4j at all. Currently PDFBox's only dependency is FontBox(see comments below), although bouncy castle will soon become an optional dependency for certificate based encryption and rhino(looks like Batik uses this as well) will also be an optional dependency for Javascript execution. Some additional comments, *After the 0.7.2 release, PDFBox split the font infrastructure into another project, so aptly named FontBox. No official version has been released yet but the project was created and all font parsing logic was separated from PDFBox. As far as I can tell there is no open source font library and for many of the same reasons we have discussed I thought it would be better as a separate project. It sounds like there has already been some discussion on making a separate font library project, I would be happy to collaborate on and donate what little font parsing code I have to that project. It only makes sense for PDFBox/FOP/Batik/... to all use a single font library. It is starting to sound like a unified font system might be the first task. *I did not realize that other projects(Batik) were using FOP's pdf library, again a separate PDF&Font library makes that cleaner. As a side note, PDFs can contain SVG graphics, so I eventually saw PDFBox utilizing Batik, which makes things interesting :) *If bringing PDFBox into ASF is what is necessary to make this work than I am willing to do that.
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
I believe we're not talking about the same aspect. I'm not saying the having support for parsed PDF in FOP is off-topic. I'm very much for having that as resources allow. I was talking about adopting PDFBox. PDFBox itself is a project big enough to support its own community. Integrating it into FOP would kill its visibility. Integrating it into XML Graphics means stretching the project's mission quite a bit. It would have to be a separate subproject (same level as Batik, FOP and Commons), otherwise its visibility is not good enough. We would hurt PDFBox that way. If there's enough energy coming from the PDFBox community (not just Ben), we could help it into the ASF as an Incubator project destined for its own TLP. But that's not a decision to be taken lightly. But it would be a cool thing. I simply don't think XML Graphics is the place for PDFBox. On 13.03.2006 10:44:09 Chris Bowditch wrote: > Jeremias Maerki wrote: > > > > > * Adopting PDFBox into the ASF is certainly an option if the people > > involved in PDFBox really want that. A full PDF library with parsing and > > rendering support might go beyond the XML Graphics' project boundaries, > > however. It might need to go into a separate project. And that would > > certainly be a big step which would need a lot of energy. > > Jeremias, I'm not sure I agree with this comment. We get a lot of > customers asking for an XSL-FO solution that can include a static PDF as > the last page or similar. RenderX already offers the ability to include > a PDF in a fo:external-graphic. If FOP had the ability to parse a PDF, > then this feature would be a possibility for FOP *g* > > Chris Jeremias Maerki
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
(Sorry for my late answer. Been away the last two days.) On 13.03.2006 23:52:40 Ben Litchfield wrote: > Chris, > > > > I don't think FOP should step up to a minimum of 1.4. Just last week > a > > user was saying on the user mailing list that needed FOP to run on > JDK > > 1.2. > > > You have valid concerns, I will revisit exactly what parts of PDFBox > require 1.4. I suspect it is only small sections and potentially > sections not required for FOP functionality. For example, converting a > PDF to an image requires 1.4, but that is not functionality that would > be used by FOP. It should not be too difficult to isolate these > sections. > > My only other comment(and I am just ranting) on this issue is that > staying compatible with 1.3 requires effort, which diverts effort from > added features or fixing bugs. Staying on the bleeding edge also takes > a lot of effort, but 1.4 has been around for over 4 years, we need to > cutover at some point. I've just downloaded the source code for pdfbox and fontbox from CVS and went through it: There are a few string routines which are easily made available in JDK 1.3. Same goes for W3C DOM and JAXP. The Color constants simply have to be written in lower case. Remains the use of regular expressions which is only done in utility classes which would not be needed by FOP. As you said, ImageIO is probably the biggest problem for JDK 1.3 compatibility. That would take some work, but not too much I think, since some of the conversion functions could be taken out of the basic PD model classes and put into helper classes/functions. This can make the basic PDFBox JDK 1.3 compatible (with some minimal restrictions) and useful for FOP without too much effort, probably without even having to break backwards-compatibility. > > > As Jeremias already mentioned FORay Font is a standalone Font library > > that has evolved from FOP 0.20.5. > > > I just joined the foray developer list and hope to start helping. I > don't fully understand how the Foray font package is changing to > support FOP, but that is off topic so I'll start a new discussion > thread on that list. I've seen it. It's good that you did that. We all depend on fonts. Jeremias Maerki
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Chris, > I don't think FOP should step up to a minimum of 1.4. Just last week a > user was saying on the user mailing list that needed FOP to run on JDK > 1.2. You have valid concerns, I will revisit exactly what parts of PDFBox require 1.4. I suspect it is only small sections and potentially sections not required for FOP functionality. For example, converting a PDF to an image requires 1.4, but that is not functionality that would be used by FOP. It should not be too difficult to isolate these sections. My only other comment(and I am just ranting) on this issue is that staying compatible with 1.3 requires effort, which diverts effort from added features or fixing bugs. Staying on the bleeding edge also takes a lot of effort, but 1.4 has been around for over 4 years, we need to cutover at some point. > As Jeremias already mentioned FORay Font is a standalone Font library > that has evolved from FOP 0.20.5. I just joined the foray developer list and hope to start helping. I don't fully understand how the Foray font package is changing to support FOP, but that is off topic so I'll start a new discussion thread on that list. Ben
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
On Mar 13, 2006, at 1:39 AM, Chris Bowditch wrote: Ben Litchfield wrote: Jeremias, I'll start by answering your questions 1)What is minimum JDK required by PDFBox? PDFBox currently requires 1.4, because it uses ImageIO and a couple other things that make development much easier. PDFBox was compatible with 1.3 for a long time, but I made a decision that sticking with 1.3 would cost too much in development time versus using existing stuff in 1.4. In addition 1.3 is now two major versions old and in the EOL phase. As this effort will take some time before it could be released would it be reasonable to move the minimum requirement up to 1.4 for Batik and FOP at that time? I don't think FOP should step up to a minimum of 1.4. Just last week a user was saying on the user mailing list that needed FOP to run on JDK 1.2. A lot of big corporates are slow to upgrade their unix operating systems. And sometimes it is very difficult to get later JDK's working on older Unix platforms. Now since FOP is used a lot in batch processing, we should not be so quick to exclude these big corporations with old Unix platforms from using FOP. In the case of my former company, we could not upgrade our machine from the version of AIX (I think it was 4.x), and IBM 1.3.x was the most recent version of JRE available. One 'option' available, is fop-0.20.5 (which works great!). As long as it remains available, that would be sufficient. If we did go that route, it may make sense to fix a few bugs in fop-0.20.5.ducking>. Clay Leeds [EMAIL PROTECTED] My religion is simple. My religion is kindness. -- HH Dalai Lama of Tibet
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Ben Litchfield wrote: Jeremias, I'll start by answering your questions 1)What is minimum JDK required by PDFBox? PDFBox currently requires 1.4, because it uses ImageIO and a couple other things that make development much easier. PDFBox was compatible with 1.3 for a long time, but I made a decision that sticking with 1.3 would cost too much in development time versus using existing stuff in 1.4. In addition 1.3 is now two major versions old and in the EOL phase. As this effort will take some time before it could be released would it be reasonable to move the minimum requirement up to 1.4 for Batik and FOP at that time? I don't think FOP should step up to a minimum of 1.4. Just last week a user was saying on the user mailing list that needed FOP to run on JDK 1.2. A lot of big corporates are slow to upgrade their unix operating systems. And sometimes it is very difficult to get later JDK's working on older Unix platforms. Now since FOP is used a lot in batch processing, we should not be so quick to exclude these big corporations with old Unix platforms from using FOP. Some additional comments, *After the 0.7.2 release, PDFBox split the font infrastructure into another project, so aptly named FontBox. No official version has been released yet but the project was created and all font parsing logic was separated from PDFBox. As far as I can tell there is no open source font library and for many of the same reasons we have discussed I thought it would be better as a separate project. It sounds like there has already been some discussion on making a separate font library project, I would be happy to collaborate on and donate what little font parsing code I have to that project. It only makes sense for PDFBox/FOP/Batik/... to all use a single font library. It is starting to sound like a unified font system might be the first task. As Jeremias already mentioned FORay Font is a standalone Font library that has evolved from FOP 0.20.5. Take a look at the FORay project for more details: http://foray.sourceforge.net/ *I did not realize that other projects(Batik) were using FOP's pdf library, again a separate PDF&Font library makes that cleaner. As a side note, PDFs can contain SVG graphics, so I eventually saw PDFBox utilizing Batik, which makes things interesting :) yes the dependencies between batik and FOP gets confusing at times :) Chris
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Jeremias Maerki wrote: * Adopting PDFBox into the ASF is certainly an option if the people involved in PDFBox really want that. A full PDF library with parsing and rendering support might go beyond the XML Graphics' project boundaries, however. It might need to go into a separate project. And that would certainly be a big step which would need a lot of energy. Jeremias, I'm not sure I agree with this comment. We get a lot of customers asking for an XSL-FO solution that can include a static PDF as the last page or similar. RenderX already offers the ability to include a PDF in a fo:external-graphic. If FOP had the ability to parse a PDF, then this feature would be a possibility for FOP *g* Chris
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Jeremias, I'll start by answering your questions 1)What is minimum JDK required by PDFBox? PDFBox currently requires 1.4, because it uses ImageIO and a couple other things that make development much easier. PDFBox was compatible with 1.3 for a long time, but I made a decision that sticking with 1.3 would cost too much in development time versus using existing stuff in 1.4. In addition 1.3 is now two major versions old and in the EOL phase. As this effort will take some time before it could be released would it be reasonable to move the minimum requirement up to 1.4 for Batik and FOP at that time? 2)Does PDFBox require log4j? PDFBox used to be dependent on log4j, 0.7.2 has an optional dependency, the soon to be released 0.7.3 version will not use log4j at all. Currently PDFBox's only dependency is FontBox(see comments below), although bouncy castle will soon become an optional dependency for certificate based encryption and rhino(looks like Batik uses this as well) will also be an optional dependency for Javascript execution. Some additional comments, *After the 0.7.2 release, PDFBox split the font infrastructure into another project, so aptly named FontBox. No official version has been released yet but the project was created and all font parsing logic was separated from PDFBox. As far as I can tell there is no open source font library and for many of the same reasons we have discussed I thought it would be better as a separate project. It sounds like there has already been some discussion on making a separate font library project, I would be happy to collaborate on and donate what little font parsing code I have to that project. It only makes sense for PDFBox/FOP/Batik/... to all use a single font library. It is starting to sound like a unified font system might be the first task. *I did not realize that other projects(Batik) were using FOP's pdf library, again a separate PDF&Font library makes that cleaner. As a side note, PDFs can contain SVG graphics, so I eventually saw PDFBox utilizing Batik, which makes things interesting :) *If bringing PDFBox into ASF is what is necessary to make this work than I am willing to do that. As you say, this requires a fair amount of energy, so "just because" is not a good enough reason for me to to expend the energy. It sounds like the first thing we need to do is get the font system working. I also like Jeremias' idea of experimenting with a copy of the PDFRenderer, low risk and little disruption to ongoing work. At a high level this sounds reasonable to me 1)Separate font system 2)PDFBox and FOP are independently updated to use a common font system 3)A copy of the PDF renderer is created and updated to utilize PDFBox 4)Go from there No matter what is decided, steps 1&2 are desired and are already in progress. I would like to help with the creation of the font sub system because I would like PDFBox to use it. Ben Jeremias Maerki wrote: Ben, thank you for speaking up. As Chris guessed right, I've been out of the fight for the last few days. Still recovering... Since I've discovered PDFBox I've always played with the thought that one day we might put our resources together. You'll see below why I personally haven't put any energy into it, yet. First of all, let me reassure everyone that the BSD license PDFBox uses would be totally fine for us (PMC members should know that if they read the mails on the PMC list *g*). Remember, the Apache license originally emerged from the BSD license. Those who are here for a long time now might remember that there was once a short discussion about switching to iText (mid-March 2002). I don't remember the exact reasons why this wasn't pursued but I think the license was one of the reasons. iText is dual-licensed (MPL (more or less ok) and LGPL (no go)). I guess the itch was too feeble, too, at that time. However, if I'm not mistaken one of the FOP devs wrote a private PDF Renderer implementation using iText. That said, I don't think we have a big itch today. I would like to list of few points (in addition to Ben's) to consider without saying +1 or -1 to the whole idea at this time (I haven't made up my mind, yet): * PDFBox looks like a well-maintained and well-structured project. The license is very liberal. Activity seems to be good and it's not a new project. Well, it probably suffers from the same problem as FOP: Lack of confidence to jump over the version 1.0 barrier. ;-) * FOP's PDF library is supposed to move to XML Graphics Commons in order to build a clean dependency tree for Batik and FOP, since not only FOP uses the PDF library to produce PDF. * The Batik devs are very cautious about adopting an external dependancy. PDFBox would be such a thing. This means that working with PDFBox is not only a decision of the FOP subproject, but one for the whole XML Graphics project. * PDFBox has its own font infrastructure (font file parsers). Vincent Hennebert is s
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Ben, thank you for speaking up. As Chris guessed right, I've been out of the fight for the last few days. Still recovering... Since I've discovered PDFBox I've always played with the thought that one day we might put our resources together. You'll see below why I personally haven't put any energy into it, yet. First of all, let me reassure everyone that the BSD license PDFBox uses would be totally fine for us (PMC members should know that if they read the mails on the PMC list *g*). Remember, the Apache license originally emerged from the BSD license. Those who are here for a long time now might remember that there was once a short discussion about switching to iText (mid-March 2002). I don't remember the exact reasons why this wasn't pursued but I think the license was one of the reasons. iText is dual-licensed (MPL (more or less ok) and LGPL (no go)). I guess the itch was too feeble, too, at that time. However, if I'm not mistaken one of the FOP devs wrote a private PDF Renderer implementation using iText. That said, I don't think we have a big itch today. I would like to list of few points (in addition to Ben's) to consider without saying +1 or -1 to the whole idea at this time (I haven't made up my mind, yet): * PDFBox looks like a well-maintained and well-structured project. The license is very liberal. Activity seems to be good and it's not a new project. Well, it probably suffers from the same problem as FOP: Lack of confidence to jump over the version 1.0 barrier. ;-) * FOP's PDF library is supposed to move to XML Graphics Commons in order to build a clean dependency tree for Batik and FOP, since not only FOP uses the PDF library to produce PDF. * The Batik devs are very cautious about adopting an external dependancy. PDFBox would be such a thing. This means that working with PDFBox is not only a decision of the FOP subproject, but one for the whole XML Graphics project. * PDFBox has its own font infrastructure (font file parsers). Vincent Hennebert is still working with Victor Mote (of FOray) to improve FOrayFont and to prepare its integration/use in FOP so we profit from additional functionality. I think it would be important to make sure that the PDF library and the font subsystem remain as independant of each other as possible, i.e. it may be necessary to have multiple subclasses of basic PDF model objects to interface with the various font sources. * Switching to on an externally managed library means giving away a certain amount of control and freedom. Changes may need more energy and time. But moving the PDF library from FOP to XML Graphics Commons will already mean a step in this direction. Two projects will depend on it which means more coordination. * Adopting PDFBox into the ASF is certainly an option if the people involved in PDFBox really want that. A full PDF library with parsing and rendering support might go beyond the XML Graphics' project boundaries, however. It might need to go into a separate project. And that would certainly be a big step which would need a lot of energy. * Talking about energy: Resources in FOP and Batik are still sparse. Switching the PDF library is a rather big task and would need investment from both XML Graphics and PDFBox sides. It might produce diversion from other tasks. Could we get that together? I may be a little pessimistic, but I doubt it at this time. Just look at the font stuff. Vincent currently has to play lone rider at the moment because I simply don't have the time to even closely track what's going on. And noone else seems to have time or motivation to jump in. * An idea: We could simply start an experiment and create a copy of our PDFRenderer in the sandbox which is converted to use PDFBox as PDF backend. If it evolves enough, we can switch the main implementation one day, i.e. just let evolution decide. * Integrating PDFBox would be cool because it would allow inserting arbitrary existing PDF pages or using preproduced PDF pages as page backgrounds, stamps, watermarks, external-graphic objects. * There's probably more to add here, but my head's starting to pound again Questions: - What's the minimal JDK version for PDFBox? FOP and Batik need to remain JDK 1.3.1 compatible for the time being. - I've seen something about Log4J. I hope this is an optional dependency. Is it? One task during the migration of FOP's PDF library to XML Graphics Commons is to remove the dependency on JCL. That was a wish coming from Batik. I assume the same would apply to any other PDF library we'd use. On 09.03.2006 21:43:22 Ben Litchfield wrote: > Hello all, > > I am the main developer of PDFBox, an open source(BSD) PDF library. > > FOP contains PDF library functionality(specifically classes in > org.apache.fop.pdf.*) and PDFBox is a PDF library. Because they do > very similar things they contain a lot of overlapping code, but the pdf > package in FOP has some features that PDFBox does not and PDFBox has > some features that the FOP pdf package
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Hi Christian, Currently I am the only developer that works consistently on PDFBox, other developers contribute occasionally. I just meant to introduce myself as I assume you would not know who I am. I was proposing that PDFBox would remain on SourceForge, but I am open to other possibilities. As far as I can tell that would not need to change, is there a reason it should? Ben > Ben Litchfield schrieb: > > Hello all, > > Hi Ben, > > > I am the main developer of PDFBox, an open source(BSD) PDF library. > > How many other developers are working on PDFBox? > > [..] > > > I propose that classes in FOP's package be 'merged' into the PDFBox > > library and FOP utilize PDFBox for PDF functionality. > > Are you proposing to do this on SourceForge or here at the ASF? > > -- > Christian > >
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Ben Litchfield schrieb: > Hello all, Hi Ben, > I am the main developer of PDFBox, an open source(BSD) PDF library. How many other developers are working on PDFBox? [..] > I propose that classes in FOP's package be 'merged' into the PDFBox > library and FOP utilize PDFBox for PDF functionality. Are you proposing to do this on SourceForge or here at the ASF? -- Christian
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Ben Litchfield wrote: I propose that classes in FOP's package be 'merged' into the PDFBox library and FOP utilize PDFBox for PDF functionality. I think we should do this for a variety of reasons; -PDFBox & FOP benefit by gaining functionality -PDFBox & FOP benefit by having a larger user base, which means code is used more, tested more, contributed to more -The entire community benefits by having higher quality PDF components available -There are several projects that currently take FOP output and perform post processing with PDFBox, this could be optimized if FOP used PDFBox as its core -Future core PDF development efforts will no longer be duplicated between these two projects Thanks for coming forward with this proposal. It certainly looks like both projects have a lot to gain from such a merge. The one who really needs to comment on this proposal is Jeremias as he had plans to take the PDF library out of FOP's code base and make it a separate library in XML Graphics Commons project. It could be that when we do this, we also merge with PDF Box Libraries. I believe Jeremias is unwell at the moment, so he might not be able to comment for a few days. Jeremias is also well versed in the ASF position on licensing. I wanted to gauge interest from FOP developers and start to think about how we can make this work. What do you guys think? In short its a good idea :) Chris
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
> I spent a little time on the Apache Licensing page, and didn't find > anywhere that said it was compatible (I'm not saying it isn't > compatible, just that I didn't see anything that said it was... in > the 5 minutes I looked). As for the rest of the licensing stuff, I > don't know. But the answer may be on the Apache Licensing page[3] > somewhere. > According to http://wiki.apache.org/jakarta/LicenceIssues (which is NOT official ASF position) BSD is OK. See also: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/www-legal-discuss/200512.mbox/browser. Manuel
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
I spent a little time on the Apache Licensing page, and didn't find anywhere that said it was compatible (I'm not saying it isn't compatible, just that I didn't see anything that said it was... in the 5 minutes I looked). As for the rest of the licensing stuff, I don't know. But the answer may be on the Apache Licensing page[3] somewhere. In any case, I suspect other FOP-dev codies will have more to say about the whole prospect of working together. I just thought I'd get the ball rolling a bit. Clay On Mar 9, 2006, at 7:39 PM, Ben Litchfield wrote: Hi Clay, I am glad to hear this sounds like a possibility. PDFBox is currently licensed under the BSD license. I did not initially envision a change in licensing, but I am open to possibilities if necessary. Is there a reason it would need to change? It is my understanding that Apache projects can utilize projects that are BSD licensed. Is it possible for the existing FOP pdf classes to become part of PDFBox under the BSD license? Ben Clay Leeds wrote: On Mar 9, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Ben Litchfield wrote: Hello all, I am the main developer of PDFBox, an open source(BSD) PDF library. FOP contains PDF library functionality(specifically classes in org.apache.fop.pdf.*) and PDFBox is a PDF library. Because they do very similar things they contain a lot of overlapping code, but the pdf package in FOP has some features that PDFBox does not and PDFBox has some features that the FOP pdf package does not. I propose that classes in FOP's package be 'merged' into the PDFBox library and FOP utilize PDFBox for PDF functionality. Ben Litchfield http://www.pdfbox.org/ Thank you for your interest, Ben. Although I don't speak for everyone, it does look intriguing to me. You may want to clarify how you envision PDFBox will be licensed (would this be a software license grant[1]?). I don't know the details on the BSD license. Also, I assume you would provide a software license grant and fill out a CLA[2]. [1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/#grants [2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas [3] http://www.apache.org/foundation/licence-FAQ.html Clay Leeds [EMAIL PROTECTED] My religion is simple. My religion is kindness. -- HH Dalai Lama of Tibet
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
Hi Clay, I am glad to hear this sounds like a possibility. PDFBox is currently licensed under the BSD license. I did not initially envision a change in licensing, but I am open to possibilities if necessary. Is there a reason it would need to change? It is my understanding that Apache projects can utilize projects that are BSD licensed. Is it possible for the existing FOP pdf classes to become part of PDFBox under the BSD license? Ben Clay Leeds wrote: On Mar 9, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Ben Litchfield wrote: Hello all, I am the main developer of PDFBox, an open source(BSD) PDF library. FOP contains PDF library functionality(specifically classes in org.apache.fop.pdf.*) and PDFBox is a PDF library. Because they do very similar things they contain a lot of overlapping code, but the pdf package in FOP has some features that PDFBox does not and PDFBox has some features that the FOP pdf package does not. I propose that classes in FOP's package be 'merged' into the PDFBox library and FOP utilize PDFBox for PDF functionality. Ben Litchfield http://www.pdfbox.org/ Thank you for your interest, Ben. Although I don't speak for everyone, it does look intriguing to me. You may want to clarify how you envision PDFBox will be licensed (would this be a software license grant[1]?). I don't know the details on the BSD license. Also, I assume you would provide a software license grant and fill out a CLA[2]. [1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/#grants [2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas Clay Leeds [EMAIL PROTECTED] My religion is simple. My religion is kindness. -- HH Dalai Lama of Tibet
Re: Combine FOP & PDFBox efforts?
On Mar 9, 2006, at 12:43 PM, Ben Litchfield wrote: Hello all, I am the main developer of PDFBox, an open source(BSD) PDF library. FOP contains PDF library functionality(specifically classes in org.apache.fop.pdf.*) and PDFBox is a PDF library. Because they do very similar things they contain a lot of overlapping code, but the pdf package in FOP has some features that PDFBox does not and PDFBox has some features that the FOP pdf package does not. I propose that classes in FOP's package be 'merged' into the PDFBox library and FOP utilize PDFBox for PDF functionality. Ben Litchfield http://www.pdfbox.org/ Thank you for your interest, Ben. Although I don't speak for everyone, it does look intriguing to me. You may want to clarify how you envision PDFBox will be licensed (would this be a software license grant[1]?). I don't know the details on the BSD license. Also, I assume you would provide a software license grant and fill out a CLA[2]. [1] http://www.apache.org/licenses/#grants [2] http://www.apache.org/licenses/#clas Clay Leeds [EMAIL PROTECTED] My religion is simple. My religion is kindness. -- HH Dalai Lama of Tibet