flexfax: libtiff LZW issues esp in RH6.2

[Lee Howard <faxguy@deanox.com>]

As noted several times earlier in this forum, there are serious issues
dealing with HylaFAX-4.1beta1-1 and the new versions of libtiff because of
the discontinued support of LZW compression.  This is especially noticeable
in RedHat 6.1 installations that use the updated libtiff package as well as
all RedHat 6.2 installations (because it has the updated libtiff package).
This is not neccesarily a failing of HylaFAX, of RedHat, or of libtiff, but
a complication that has arose because of copyright and patent rights.

This issue is mentioned both by RedHat:
http://www.redhat.com/support/errata/RHBA1999061-01.php
as well as libtiff:
http://www.libtiff.org/misc.php

The symptoms of this problem are noticed as HylaFAX, when receiving faxes,
produces a connection but a useless 8-byte fax file, apparently there are
fax sending issues as well as source compilation problems (see previous
threads: "RedHat 6.1 and Hylafax Woes" and "HylaFax 4.1beta2 with TIFF
3.5.33").  {I've had some trouble getting HylaFAX to automatically answer,
also, but I'm not certain that it has anything to do with the topic at
hand... (perhaps a GettyArgs problem?).}

Having already looked elsewhere for fax support towards efax or
mgetty+sendfax I discovered that RedHat's current RPMs for those packages
do not suffer the same LZW "incompatibility" as HylaFAX.  However, as is
well known here, these packages do not have the versatility of HylaFAX
without a large and tedious amount of manual configuration.  Therefore, I
have become committed to getting HylaFAX to work for me.

Because a beta2 RPM isn't available on hylafax.org, I didn't try beta2 out
to see if it fixes the problem, but I have my doubts that it does because
of the comments in the previous thread "Hylafax 4.1beta2 with TIFF 3.5.33"
and because an LZW fix isn't noted on the README file.

As I'm aware, the only proven workaround is to "downgrade" the libtiff
version to 3.4-6 which is found on the RedHat 6.1 CD.  (I've done this, and
fax reception goes fine.)  If it truly is an LZW compression problem, then
use with the newest libtiff sources (3.5.5) which the compiler can patch
with libtiff's posted "LZW compression kit", should also be a valid
workaround.  I tried doing the latter tonight, but my compiling skills are
pathetic, and I squirm when installing gets any harder than an RPM... so I
couldn't get the new source compiled.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could tell me if I'm off-base
here, and that this really isn't an LZW problem but some other type of
version conflict.  Also, it would be just wonderful of someone if they
would make a RedHat RPM of the new libtiff source patched with the LZW
compression kit (and post a copy, of course).  I tend to believe that if it
is indeed an LZW issue, that all distros will eventually encounter this
obstacle unless the HylaFAX source moves away from LZW usage.

The LZW compression kit and new libtiff sources can be downloaded directly
from:
http://www.libtiff.org/

Given the legal issues behind the problem, I think it best that HylaFAX be
altered so that LZW compression is not necessary for its functionality.  If
anyone that matters is listening...

Thanks

Lee Howard