Ghostscript at 35: A Testament to the Power of Open Source
Kayla Klein·August 10, 2023
It's incredible to think that Ghostscript, a software that has touched countless digital lives and projects over the years, is celebrating its 35th anniversary today. As we commemorate this milestone, we would like to take a moment to reflect on Ghostscript's history and its enduring importance.
The Creator
Before diving into Ghostscript, it's important to learn a little about its creator, Dr. L. Peter Deutsch.
With a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley, Dr. Deutsch's dedication to computer languages can be traced back to his thesis days. He dedicated three decades of his life to Xerox, Xerox PARC, and later, its spin-off, PARC Place. While at Xerox he gained a tremendous reputation as a languages expert and was considered among the top garbage collection experts in the world. Moreover, Dr. Deutsch played a pivotal role as the chief architect for Xerox's Interlisp D and SmallTalk 80 compilers.
Ghostscript's Inception and Rise
While former Xerox colleagues founded Adobe and created the PostScript language revolution, Dr. Deutsch was looking for a personal project for the open-source community. With encouragement from his friends at Adobe, he started an open-source PostScript interpreter project in 1988. Dr. Deutsch selected the GNU Public License as the primary vehicle to promote his project. GPL projects almost always start with the letter "G", hence the name "Ghostscript".
Working under his company, Aladdin Enterprises, and harnessing the power of the GNU Public License to amplify the project's reach, Dr. Deutsch dedicated two years part-time before Ghostscript's inaugural release. Remarkably, commercial license requests poured in soon after, with Xerox being one of the first to integrate it for a multi-function printer. Artifex was created in 1993 to facilitate licensing of Ghostscript under commercial licensing terms.
“KIP has been partnered with Artifex for 25 years. Ghostscript has been an invaluable instrument for us each and every one of those years. The engineers on the Artifex team are unmatched in terms of expertise, guidance, and precision. It has been my pleasure to have been involved in this project for so long. Thank you for the mutual successes seen for the truly remarkable product and prolonged partnership. Hats off and cheers to many more years to come!” - KIP America
Today, Ghostscript boasts support for an array of input formats, including PDF, PostScript, PCL, XPS, and numerous raster formats like JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Its output drivers are equally varied, spanning from PDF, PDF/A, PostScript to many raster formats. Our engineers, who maintain and continue to develop Ghostscript’s many features, are among the brightest stars in their respective fields of expertise.
Ghostscript's Legacy
Being open source has allowed Ghostscript to be used in various ways, from PDF handling, development of various front ends and tools, integration into different applications, to being part of print workflows in diverse environments. Over the years, it has fostered a strong community around it. The developers, users, and enthusiasts have collectively been the beating heart of this project.
“The final, and one of the most critical steps in the workflow for our software is creation of a final PDF report. Ghostscript plays a fundamental role in this process. Previously Adobe was used for this step. Approximately 10 years ago, an attempt was made to find a replacement for Adobe. After reviewing different options, it was clear that Ghostscript was the ideal choice. Ghostscript has been a part of our software ever since.” - SLB
A special mention must be made of CUPS, the "Complete Unix Printing System". This open-source driver project takes Ghostscript's output to power virtually every major printer produced in the last 15 years.
Due to CUPS, GPL Ghostscript has been part of every Linux distribution for roughly 15 years, positioning it as the cornerstone of Linux's printing architecture. This integration, coupled with its widespread use as a primary example in computer science curricula, makes Ghostscript a familiar name among software engineers worldwide. GPL Ghostscript is one of the primary example softwares that every computer science department uses for sample code. It is hard to find a software engineer that has not worked with Ghostscript at some time in their career.
“I have been working as a software engineer for a company that includes Ghostscript in its product for over 10 years. I have always found the Artifex technical personnel to be among the top in the field to converse and troubleshoot problems with. Their knowledge of PDF internals has assisted us many times in getting our customers the solutions and user experience they expect from our product. Technical personnel I deal with have always been courteous and forthright in their discussions with me. When I hear I need to work with Artifex/Ghostscript it is a relief compared to most of our other vendors.” - Upland Software
Looking Forward
As we celebrate Ghostscript's 35th anniversary, it's also a time to look to the future. With the world moving towards more digital and paperless solutions, the importance of tools that can process, convert, and handle document formats like PostScript and PDF will only grow. In addition to providing support to our customers, our excellent team of developers continue to make significant strides in feature development and new product offerings. We are excited for what the future holds!
In an era dominated by rapid technological changes, Ghostscript stands as a testament to the fact that great software, backed by a strong community, can remain relevant and essential over decades.