[UFO Chicago] gs -sDEVICE=gif* -- Why Should Anyone Care?

[Jay F. Shachter]

Centuries ago, Nostradamus predicted that Carl Karsten would write on Wed Nov 15 16:09:56 2023:

>
> What is the upper problem you are trying to solve?
>
> Where are you getting PDFs from, and why do you want gif?
>

My particular scenario is not at all compelling: I have a troff input
file from which I generate a 6-month Postcript calendar, every six
months, using troff and dpost.  Then I convert it to GIF, and when I
have to add things to my calendar that I might otherwise forget to do,
I use an image editor.  Why GIF?  Solely for historical reasons.

As I said, this is not a compelling scenario.  I could easily use PNG
or some other image format, rather than GIF.  It is administratively
useful that all my calendars are GIF files and have .gif extensions,
but it would be a relatively small matter to convert all my previous
calendars to, e.g., PNG format, and then to generate all future
calendars in the same format.  The reason I posted my initial question
was not that I needed to know the answer for a compelling practical
reason.  Nor was it, as was suggested, to complain, although that was
not an implausible suggestion, because complaining is certainly one of
my favorite things to do, since you always enjoy doing the things that
you are especially good at.  The reason I asked is that I didn't know
the answer, and I thought the answer might be interesting.  The gs
command used to convert PostScript to gif, and then it stopped doing
it, and it still doesn't do it.  Why doesn't it?  Is it because
someone worried about a patent, that he wasn't formerly worrying
about?  Is there a GIF patent that worries the ghostscript people that
doesn't worry the ImageMagick people, in the same way that the ZFS
patents worry the OpenBSD people but don't worry the FreeBSD and
NetBSD people?  Or is it some other reason totally unrelated to
patents?  I don't know the answer, and if someone does know the answer
(as opposed to speculating about it), I would very much like to know
it too.

                        Jay F. Shachter
                        6424 North Whipple Street
                        Chicago IL  60645-4111
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                                jay at m5.chicago.il.us
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                        "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur"