Ghostscript new (minor) version

[Karl Berry]

    bv> the impossibility to change the output device through PostScript
    code, unless the new device has been declared upon launch through a
    new option "--permit-devices=".

Thanks much for the heads-up, Bruno. Running
  grep -r setpagedevice texmf-dist
shows a number of packages using that, but generally to change the page
size (I think). Is gs restricting all use of setpagedevice?
Hopefully not.
  
I could not tell from the diffs. I do not know how to change the gs
output device from PostScript in the first place, and I couldn't find it
in the docs. Tom, anyone?
  
     tr> Given recent events (xz), I'm hoping we vet those changes and this
     new release *extremely* carefully . . .

Unfortunately, that's not the reality. Who is going to do any such vetting?
We are all volunteers and no one (besides Bruno :) ever seems to want to
test anything. I sure don't.  Pretty much all we can do is put it out
there and let the users test.  Which is clearly poor practice, but
lacking volunteers who want to dig into such details, there's nothing
else to be done. As far as I can see. --thanks, karl.