Jareth Hein wrote:
Unfortunatly, that's not UniSys' view on the situation.
Their take is
that any use of LZW requires a license from them. The comment in my
previous quote is a direct quote from one of their lawyers, and while
it displays a disturbing lack of comprehension (can anyone tell me
what LZW looks like so I know how to avoid displaying it??? <grin>)
they are showing a zeal for jumping up and down upon people who
violate their supposed turf.
The view of Unisys' lawyers contradicts the view of the lawyers RMS has
consulted. Here is the question I asked RMS and his answer. So it seems
that you can keep the stuff in.
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From: Bruno Haible <haible(a)ilog.fr>
To: Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org>
Subject: GIF displaying & LZW decompression
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 01:02:08 +0200 (MET DST)
Dear RMS,
This week, it was discussed on the XEmacs list
(see
http://www.xemacs.org/list-archives/xemacs-beta/9807/threads.html)
whether XEmacs can keep its GIF displaying engine or whether some workarounds
can be found around the Unisys patent.
There is an apparent contradiction: In
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html
you say
"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."
On the other hand, Unisys (
http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwfaq.html)
claim that
"the reading and/or writing of GIF images requires a license to use
Unisys patented Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) data compression and
decompression technology, including United States Patent No.
4,558,302, Japanese Patent Numbers 2,123,602 and 2,610,084, and
patents in Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom."
Who is right? (I hope you are.)
Best regards,
Bruno
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Stallman <rms(a)santafe.edu>
To: haible(a)ilog.fr
Subject: Re: GIF displaying & LZW decompression
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 15:07:43 -0600
Reply-To: rms(a)gnu.org
The lawyers I have asked confirm that the Unisys LZW patent means what
it says: it does not cover a system which can only uncompress LZW and
cannot compress. And the same is true for the IBM LZW patent,
which is also worded the same way.
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