Use of new GD 1.7.3

[Frank Koormann]

Doug,

in addition to what Brent already said:
 
* Doug Nebert (ddnebert at usgs.gov) [000103 19:49]:
> I notice that the newest version of the GD library supports 
> only PNG instead of GIF.  If one uses it in lieu of an older 
> GD library under mapserver, will it just make PNG automatically 
> or do other configuration parameters need to be adjusted in 
> mapserver for operation? 

The default makefile will link the gd-library statically to the
mapserver binary and hence upgrading libgd on your system will 
have no effect on mapserver.

> I'm assuming that PNG would be adequate for most uses?

4th generation browsers can handle the format. It is very efficient 
(eg. not limited to 256 colors) and it is not affected by the
lzw-compression license issues (one of the reasons why the gd-developers
dropped gif-support from the library).

Frank