[tldistro] libxpdf vs poppler

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Alexis,

On Mo, 14 Apr 2008, Alexis Ballier wrote:
> For some time I've been asking myself about using poppler or keeping
> libxpdf from texlive.

Debian patches texlive to use libpoppler.

> I've seen some other distros patching texlive to use poppler. I can
> easily see the pros (code sharing, less security issues, etc.) but also
> see some cons: api changes in poppler, differing from what the texlive
> team has been working with, possible subtle differences between the
> two...
> 
> I'd like to know a few things about this: How do you handle these
> problems ? Is it a source of headaches or does it just solve much more
> problems than it may cause ? Do different poppler releases require
> code/patches adjustments ?

I have patches for libpoppler-6 and libpoppler-4 in the Debian packages.
The libpoppler-4 is for etch backports, libpoppler-6 for Debian/sid.

The changes are getting smaller and smaller, libpoppler-6 patch needs
much less hacking, in principle it is only GString -> GooString change,
and some Makefile/depend.mk/etc patches. In total it is quite painless.


> And for the texlive team: What are the plans about this ? I cant see

Putting TeX Live head on: We follow upstream in this respect, i.e., if
pdftex starts to support libpoppler TeX Live will follow. But this will
not happen soon, AFAIR. But Martin might prove me wrong.

> anything related to that in svn; is poppler definitely a no-no or is it
> just planned but not yet done because of lack of time ?
> I suppose having official support for poppler would mean working with
> xetex and pdftex teams rather than texlive's.

Right. I can supply patches for texlive and luatex (having all them in
Debian with libpoppler), but the pdftex and xetex team are the main ones
to start.

BTW, here is the diffstat from the current libpoppler patch:
 build/source/configure                           |    6 +-
 build/source/configure.in                        |    8 +--
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/Makefile.in    |    2 
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/depend.mk      |   58 +----------------------
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/pdftex.mk      |    9 ++-
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/pdftexextra.in |    2 
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/pdftoepdf.cc   |   54 ++++++++++-----------
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/pdftosrc.cc    |   40 ++++++++-------
 build/source/texk/web2c/pdftexdir/utils.c        |    4 -
 build/source/texk/web2c/xetexdir/XeTeX_ext.c     |    4 -
 build/source/texk/web2c/xetexdir/pdfimage.cpp    |   24 +++++++--
 build/source/texk/web2c/xetexdir/xetex.mk        |    8 ++-
 12 files changed, 96 insertions(+), 123 deletions(-)

The big number of -/+ are the removals of #include ...

Best wishes

Norbert

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at>        Vienna University of Technology
Debian Developer <preining at debian.org>                         Debian TeX Group
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