Re: Ghostscript ready to upload

[Charles Wilson <cwilson at ece dot gatech dot edu>]

Dario Alcocer wrote:

> Chris,
> 
> I've *finally* finished testing and packaging Ghostscript.  I've put
> the packages and MD5 files at:
> 
>     http://members.cox.net/dalcocer/gs
> 
> As soon as I hear back from you that the package has been uploaded,
> I'll send out the announcement.  Thanks, and sorry about taking so
> long to get this release out.

Okay, I've uploaded it -- but I am curious about one thing:
----------
Previous releases required shared libraries for zlib, libpng, and jpeg.
However, due to the very specific requirements Ghostscript has regarding
these libraries, these libraries are instead statically linked.  As a
result, Ghostscript no longer requires the use of shared libraries.
The libraries are included in the source package, ready to be built
with Ghostscript.
----------

What specifically is wrong with the existing shared libraries?  I do 
*not* want to see a trend start where other packages start shipping the 
source to the libraries they depend on.  Linking statically is okay -- 
e.g. linking against the libtiff.a file in tiff-3.5.7-1 package by using 
"gcc -static .... -ltiff", for instance -- but duplicating my work is a 
bit, ah, insulting.

If you can't build ghostscript against the shipped libraries, then 
either the libraries or ghostscript is broken and need to be fixed. 
What *specifically* is wrong with cygtiff.dll, cygz.dll, or cygpng2.dll?

--Chuck