Re: names of programs

At 05:30 PM 4/11/2004 -0500, Jim Hettmer wrote:
>   If I am misinformed about this then I apologize in advance.  What I hear is 
>that GraphicsMagick intends to use "convert", "display", etc. for the GM 
>equivalents of these ImageMagick programs.

GraphicsMagick will continue to use "gm" as the name of the utility
program.  What is newly proposed is to add aliases for "gm" as
"convert", "display", etc., for the purpose of interacting with
existing scripts that use the ImageMagick utility names.

>After nearly 40 years in the 
>business of contributing software to computer communities and helping people 
>get started, I can only urge that some other choice be made.

Only the existing utility names will work with existing scripts.

The ImageMagick license, version 5.5.2, seems to permit the name usurping.
There is ample precedent for emulators that emulate faithfully.  Linux,
for example, provides replacements for the Unix utilities, with the
same names and usually the same syntax.  It gets messy when the syntax
or behavior is different.  I've been burned, for example, with "sed".

All the same, I'm not in favor of usurping the names, because of possible
confusion on the part of casual users, and the possibility of a casual
user inadvertently replacing IM with the GM aliases.  "power" users should
be capable of modifying their scripts, to add (perhaps optionally) the "gm "
prefix to each commandline.

Glenn






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