Re: GIF Format
- Posted by "Brian K. Broker" <bkb at CNW.COM> Aug 30, 1999
- 398 views
On Sunday, August 29, 1999 11:56 PM Greg Phillips wrote: > I just ran across this...it appears that if you operate a website that > uses gif images,or other LZW(TIFF-LZW, PostScript, Portable Document > Format (PDF), V.42bis, etc.) formats, you may have to purchase a $5000 > license from Unisys, the people who patented the technology. > > Also, if you write a program that reads or writes GIF images, you must > get a license. Lastly, if you download a program that makes use of GIF > technology, you must obtain a license from Unisys (which may or may not > cost money, depending on the circumstances). If you don't get this > license, you are supposedly in violation of > > That, in a nutshell is what's wrong with the world today. > > Take a look: > http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwfaq.html > http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzw-license.html > > Greg Phillips That's why I've been considering writing a PNG library. Lossless, supports more than 256 colors, and it's free... ( for more info see http://www.cdrom.com/pub/png/ ) Does anyone else have something started on this format? There is open source C code provided but I'm not the most fluent with C... -- Brian Broker