Future GraphicsMagick directions

After making a 1.3.7 release based on CVS HEAD development code, I 
plan to put the 1.3 branch into "security and bug fixes" maintenance 
mode.

I would like to change the GraphicsMagick license to be the true MIT 
License text (as described at 
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php) rather than the 
MIT look-alike license currently used.  It is within our right to do 
this since the existing license text provides for sublicensing, and of 
course GraphicsMagick Group applied the current license. Using the 
true MIT license gains Open Source Initiative approval, and blessings 
from other organizations as well.  We can't change existing licenses 
covering code we didn't write but the existing licenses which provide 
for sublicensing then effectively become covered by the MIT license.

For the Windows build (and starting in the the 1.4 release cycle), I 
would like to eliminate any dependence on proprietary C++ class 
libraries (ATL and MFC).  This will result in the elimination of 
"gmdisplay" and "ImageMagickObject" from the installer.  The 
distributed binary software can then be completely built using Visual 
Studio Express edition, or GCC.  Obviously we will need some sort of 
new display program (based on an open source toolkit) which works 
under Windows, and it would be useful to have an API which may be used 
from other than C or C++ (e.g. from Visual Basic).  This can be 
discussed in the GraphicsMagick forum and mailing lists.

Thanks,

Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
[email protected], http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/

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