Re: FLASH: OT: PNG instead of GIF/JPEGs

[Kristopher Schultz]

This has always been a topic that is a little confusing...


Unisys, who owns the patent on the LZW algorithm used for GIF compression,

DOES get paid for use of their patent. Any software company - Adobe,

Macromedia, Microsoft, etc. - that creates software that can READ or WRITE

the GIF format has to pay a license fee to them.


The only time a Web design company would EVER have to consider paying Unisys

is if they had created GIFs using a piece of software from a vendor that HAD

NOT already paid a license fee to them. I don't know of any such software

out there, although you could wonder about some shareware or freeware

programs out there that support the GIF format I suppose.


IF YOU REALLY WANT TO BE SCARED...

Brittish Telecommunications announced back in June that they own the patent

on hyperlinks! They have threatened to charge every ISP a license fee. It

remains to be seen if their argument even has any merit and I haven't heard

anything recently on the topic. You can read the story at News.com:

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2115385.html



kristopher schultz - mills james productions

programming : compression : management


@ www.millsjames.com - columbus, ohio 



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