Opinions on FreeImage?

[Tor Lillqvist <tml iki fi>]

I just came across yet another image loading/saving/manipulation
library, FreeImage (freeimage.sourceforge.net). It's dual licensed
under GPL and its own FreeImage Public License ("FIPL"). (I am not a
lawyer and can't say whether the FIPL is compatible with the LGPL.)
Anyway, it seems to contain some interresting and useable code, for
instance for high quality arbitrary image rotation, which GdkPixbuf
lacks. It is cross-platform (but still maybe mostly used on Windows).

It has a plain C API (i.e. not any MFC or whatever style influenced
C++ crap, as is common for stuff originating from the Windows
platform). (The API does still have a certain vague "Windows smell" to
it...;-)

Anyway, what do people think of it? I mean, it seems to be a superset
of GdkPixbuf, more or less. Is there some reason why one should use
GdkPixbuf and not FreeImage in a GPL application? Well, GdkPixbuf uses
MMX code for some stuff, so it might be faster for those tasks.

--tml