> The "convert" command can not be an executable script because it sets
> environment variables (presumably you wouldn't want it to launch a new
> shell) and so has to be an alias.
Good point. The environment variables are used by the on-the-fly
conversion definitions. These were introduced several years into
CONVERT's life and a few years after the convert alias existed.
> The clash with ImageMagick commands is unfortunate but both these
> commands have been around for a long time and in the dim and distant
> past there was no clash because many sites would not have even known
> what ImageMagick was. I have no idea when the "convert" commands first
> existed but it's difficult to plan forward.
CONVERT has been around since 1988, and KAPPA first appeared in 1987
October, while ImageMagick was released in 1990 August.
> Once linux distributions became popular and started shipping with
> ImageMagick by default it may have been that Starlink should have just
> bowed to the inevitable and changed the package name for CONVERT to
> something else.
It's not as if this has been a common complaint. I'd be reluctant to
change the command initialisation across the board given current
resources.
Malcolm Currie
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