[Openicc] [argyllcms] OT: PDF frustration

[Hal V. Engel]

On Saturday 04 October 2008 13:01:45 Joshua L. Blocher wrote:
> Hal V. Engel wrote:
snip
> > One possibility is to have an OpenICC proposal for this as part of the
> > 2009 Google Summer of Code but there are a number of issues with this. 
> > First it means that the soonest we would see this fixed in poppler would
> > be around this time next year.  Second we have no way of knowing if
> > Google will select the OpenICC again for next years program.   And
> > finally we would not have any way to assure that a student would be
> > interested in this project and that this project would be make the cut
> > even if OpenICC were accepted by Google for 2009.
> >
> > Although Lars vented about this here I think this belongs on the OpenICC
> > list so I am cross posting my reply to the OpenICC list.  I think there
> > are things we can do to help the poppler project with this issue and I
> > think that there are others on OpenICC that might be able to suggest ways
> > to approach this. My last note to the poppler email list has some rough
> > ideas about what needs to be done and it could be used as a basis for a
> > series of smaller projects that could move poppler along in the desired
> > direction.  This might make it easier to find student volunteers for
> > since these sub-projects would be something that would be more
> > approachable for a student.
> >
> > One other thing.  Lars has a link in his note to a bug opened by Kai-Uwe
> > about three weeks ago but there is an existing CM bug open for poppler
> > that was opened 02/16/2008 
> > https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14526 .  I am not sure why
> > the Kai-Uwe bug is not closed as a duplicate of that bug.
> >
> > Hal

> Would using GSoC money earned this year be enough, to offer a bounty for
> this work.
> I know bounties are not always the best way to get things done. But this
> seems like one
> of the times it might help. A time sensitive project that needs someone
> with area expertise.
>
> Just a idea.
>
>
> Joshua L. Blocher
> verbalshadow

That is one possible approach since we do have $1,000 from GSoC 2008 to use 
for whatever.  On the #openicc IRC channel we also talked about using some of 
it to get a ColorMunki to donate to Graeme so that he can add support for it 
to the ArgyllCMS meter code.  That was yesterday so I have not had a chance to 
ask Graeme if he was interested.  But even if we did that it would still leave 
most of this (around $600) to fund adding CM to poppler if we decided to do 
that.

Most of the work needed in poppler is structural in nature to bring the code 
in line with the PDF specifications so that CM specific code can be added.  
The PDF specifications are fairly clear on how this should work and it is 
fairly easy to see how the code would need to be structured to implement the 
specification.  This restructuring is for the most part simple work but there 
is enough of it that it is a big job and it will impact a significant part of 
the code base.  Fortunately the poppler code makes good use of the OO features 
of C++ so most of the external API would not be affected.  Once the code was 
restructured adding CM would be a fairly simple task.  In fact if the code had 
been structured in line with the PDF specification I would have likely already 
submitted patches for preliminary CM support.  But when I saw how much work 
was needed to get it to the point where those patches would be useful I backed 
away.  But a bounty dangled in front of the poppler developers to prep the 
code for adding CM might get the results we need in a fairly short time frame.

Hal