Re: De-GIFfing (was Re: beta38-pre3 has been uploaded)
Hrvoje Niksic wrote:
> GIF reading is not up for a vote[1]. Where did you get the
impression
> that it was?
In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed by an
authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for all use,
sale or distribution of any software (including so-called "freeware")
and/or hardware providing LZW conversion capability (for example,
downloaded software used for creating/displaying GIF images).
^^^^^^^^^^
Are we taking that seriously?
Does it mean what it appears to, or are Unisys trying to confuse
matters? The statement could be taken as stating that a licence is
required for software which both creates _and_ displays GIF images.
Wouldn't the FSF have taken legal advice before making the statement
Decoding GIFs is a different issue. The Unisys and IBM
patents are both written in such a way that they do not
apply to a program which can only uncompress LZW format
and cannot compress. Therefore we can and will include
support for displaying GIF files in GNU software.
--
Glynn Clements <glynn(a)sensei.co.uk>