Changes in the most recent release of Ghostscript

This document is news about the most recent Ghostscript release. For earlier versions, see the history documents:

History of Ghostscript versions 7.n
History of Ghostscript versions 6.n
History of Ghostscript versions 5.n
History of Ghostscript versions 4.n
History of Ghostscript versions 3.n
History of Ghostscript versions 2.n
History of Ghostscript versions 1.n

For other information, see the Ghostscript overview.

Version 7.04 (2002-01-31)

This is a security update of Ghostscript. A number of maintenance fixes and new features have been added.

Major changes include:

• A rather serious security hole, where PostScript code could cause arbitrary commands to be executed, has been patched.
• There is also a new -DPARANOIDSAFER option, which locks down reading of arbitrary files.
• This release integrates the IJS driver, which makes it much easier to add and upgrade printer drivers without needing to recompile Ghostscript.
• There is a configure script for automatically configuring the makefile on Unix platforms. Those who enjoy the fun of hand-editing the makefile are still welcome to do so.
• The usual bug fixes.

The following SourceForge bug numbers are currently open: 215256, 219798, 405342, 406979, 407342, 414947, 414985, 415142, 416131, 416830, 418241, 421057, 423838, 427193, 427314, 427347, 428891, 428973, 432040, 434277, 436099, 437285, 438957, 443745, 446344, 446672, 448199, 450663, 451456, 452155, 453969, 458261, 458500, 458769, 458775, 458780, 459647, 462221, 465720, 465936, 468762, 472681, 474544, 474582, 474745, 475147, 477644, 479071, 481893, 482033, 482038, 483066, 483629, 484752, 484753, 485498, 485510, 487953, 493344, 493348, 493413, 495088, 495319, 498595, 502102, 503170, 503731, 503794, 505047, 505151, 505429, 505438, 506375, 508081, 508607, 508675, 508722, 509646, 510713, 510776, 510808, 511232.

Incompatible changes

No incompatible changes have been recorded for this version. Authors of drivers with potential security implications are encouraged to review the security changes, however.

Copyright © 2002 artofcode LLC. All rights reserved.

This file is part of AFPL Ghostscript. See the Aladdin Free Public License (the "License") for full details of the terms of using, copying, modifying, and redistributing AFPL Ghostscript.

Ghostscript version 7.04, 31 January 2002