2016.06.05 17:08 "Re: [Tiff] Proposed libtiff utilities removal", by Roger Leigh

On 05/06/2016 15:13, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:

I propose removing libtiff utilities for which the implementation is so out of date that the utility is essentially defunct and only serves to confuse potential users and enlarge the libtiff package security footprint.

The utilities 'bmp2tiff' and 'gif2tiff' should be removed since they do not support modern versions of the BMP and GIF formats.

The utility 'ras2tiff' can be removed since the Sun Rasterfile file format is antique, is no longer in common use, and is adequately supported by other software.

I would like to remove source files and manual pages for all utilities to be removed, or which were already removed from the default build. If someone wants the source code for one of these utilities, they can obtain them from an existing libtiff release package.

Comments and recommendations for additional utilities to be removed are appreciated. For example, if a utility is redundant with a much better implementation from some other commonly-available free software package typically installed in parallel with libtiff, then the libtiff version could be marked deprecated for eventual removal.

In general, this sounds like a fine plan. The only thought I had was that if these removal candidates were showing examples of best practice use of the libtiff API which were not present in any other examples then if it would be worth copying those into new or existing examples? If nothing of value is going to be lost, then certainly sounds good.

Regards,
Roger