[cairo-bugs] [Bug 99514] Allow to set the pdf metadata producer

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99514

--- Comment #6 from Bryce Harrington <bryce at osg.samsung.com> ---
It sounds like there are two distinct problems wanting addressed:

1.  A way to omit metadata entirely from generated PDFs
2.  A way to modify the Producer string in cairo-generated PDFs

Regarding the first point:  Like Adrian I'm skeptical of the actual value of
omitting metadata for security protection (seems merely
security-through-obscurity) -- I'd need to see a stronger case made to be
convinced.  That said, I recall in Inkscape we had some
interoperational/compatibility problems with SVG that included metadata, so
provide a way for users to get stripped down "plain SVG" that excludes it.  I
don't know if such problems are at all likely with PDF metadata, but if there
are legitimate concerns here I wouldn't be opposed to allowing a toggle to omit
it.

For the second point, again like Adrian says it appears that most cases where
an app or library is using Cairo to produce PDFs they should list themselves as
the Creator with Cairo as the PDF Producer.  Googling around seems to indicate
Adobe and other PDF tools follow this same strategy.  There does seem to be
demand for an ability to customize the Producer field, but from what I can tell
it seems to be for branding purposes (or maybe even more nefarious reasons),
which seem hardly compelling...

That said, it seems like it is easy enough to edit the generated PDF's metadata
using other free software tools, and maybe it'd be better for Cairo to allow
adding to the string so Cairo still gets tagged.  E.g. I'm thinking something
more like:

... "   /Producer %s (cairo %s (http://cairographics.org))\n",
    ic->docinfo.producer, cairo_version_string ())

On the other hand, maybe the use case for this is small enough we could just
direct folks that need to manipulate the metadata to the third party editing
tools that they'd be using anyway?

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