ghost@aladdin.com (L. Peter Deutsch) (10/17/89)
Dear Ghostscript users,
I owe you all an apology and an explanation as to what has been
happening with the promised 1.4 release.
Once again, I badly misjudged both the other demands on my time, and
the amount of work required to do the things I had planned out for
this release. I haven't even looked at the code since late August.
The "1.4" that a couple of people found over at Stanford was the
result of carelessness on my part. Someone over there (I don't even
remember who) asked for a copy just to see what it was all about, and
at the time it was easier for me to give him a copy of the
1.4-under-development than to haul out the archive of 1.3. I would
appreciate it very much if the person I gave "1.4" to (and whoever
got it from him) would flush it.
Since I don't feel I've got the time to support Ghostscript the way
it deserves, I'd like to hear from people who DO have the time,
interest, and expertise to carry it forward. As much as I enjoy
working on this project, other activities are taking precedence right
now, and for the immediately foreseeable future.
My plan now is to put out a release with only bug fixes plus the
ability to have multiple devices in one build (which already works
well enough). This release will be numbered 1.4. The other things I
promised for 1.4 (DeskJet support, bitmaps in memory, save & restore,
LIB in command line) will probably have to wait for 1.5. I'm sorry I
can't give a date for 1.4, but I'd rather not create false
expectations again. Unless unusual difficulties come up, I'm
guessing I'll have time to see it through by the end of November, but
that's only a guess.
Again, I apologize for not having handled this situation very well.
Thanks for your patience, and I hope Ghostscript will continue to be
useful to you in the future.
L. Peter Deutsch ghost@aladdin.com
Aladdin Enterprises ...{uunet,parcplace}!aladdin!ghost
P. O. box 60264, Palo Alto, CA 94306