2023.09.19 15:24 "[Tiff] unsupported/archived tools and feature in v4.6.0", by Lee Howard

All,

I have read this thread:

https://www.asmail.be/msg0055010410.html

... and I have read the v4.6.0 release notes:

http://www.simplesystems.org/libtiff/releases/v4.6.0.html

However, I do not see mentioned any reasonable direction to follow for users of the unsupported/archived tools and features. (Forever using binaries of v4.5.1 tools is a silly suggestion. That would only work until the ABI breaks... which it eventually will.)

What the plan is for those of us who need those tools? Does the community have a plan?

I understand that there are known security issues, etc., but those problems are not relevant for where HylaFAX uses these tools (usually against received faxes, and occasionally against Ghostscript output). Comments that I've seen which suggest that nobody could sensibly use these tools because of the known long-running CVEs are simply out of touch with the real-world use cases of these tools.

HylaFAX uses fax2ps, tiff2bw, tiffdither, tiff2ps, tiff2pdf, *and* HylaFAX also uses the "-i" feature for tiffcp.

I suppose that I could go through a lot of work to rewrite the HylaFAX processes that utilize these things and figure out different ways of accomplishing the same, but I'm far more inclined to just copy these tools into HylaFAX source code, rename them, and then go from there. However, I don't want to do that if the community already has a plan to maintain these tools elsewhere.

So, before I start with the process of putting these tools directly into HylaFAX does the community have a plan?

Thank you,

Lee.