[Xastir] Proposal: Pitch ImageMagick and require GraphicsMagick instead.

[Curt, WE7U]

On Fri, 1 Jan 2010, Tom Russo wrote:

> I say it's time that we declare ImageMagick too unstable an external library
> for us to support.  GraphicsMagick, the stable fork of ImageMagick, has been
> much better and provides all the features we actually use.  Now that the
> 8-bit quantum bug in Xastir is fixed, GraphicsMagick is a viable alternative
> for all platforms.

It would be prudent to contact the GM team to find out their
position on the latest IM problems/whether GM will be making similar
changes to their API to keep up with the project they forked from
(IM).


> Ideally, even GraphicsMagick should not be required --- what we use of that
> library is so small a set that there should be something less elaborate that
> would serve the purpose.  But for now, GraphicsMagick is at least stable and
> functional, and doesn't require bizarre coding circumlocutions just to keep
> it going.

I heartily agree with getting rid of IM.  Are there any platforms
that Xastir runs on which don't have GM available?

I don't wish to dilute the above discussion by extending it another
direction so should delay this next bit until a later date.
However, I'll forgot what I wanted to say by then so I'll say it
now because Tom gave me the lead-in for it anyway:

Getting rid of GM certainly could be the next logical step.  I
suspect there are lean/trim/stable libraries out there which could
give us the few graphics formats we actually need.  We could either
use GM for those edge cases where people need oddball formats, or
require people to convert those oddball formats into the few formats
that we would support.  I'm not tied to the "Xastir supports 125 map
formats" statement if most people really have no use for them.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.                         <http://www.eskimo.com/~archer>
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