Re: Unisys patent

[Elfyn McBratney <elfyn at is dot ubertales dot co dot uk>]

I posted a reply to this earlier but it's just not my day for "doing things
right". I shouldn't publicise my bad language skills, should I?! :-)

  Please don't do this. From tomorrow the Unisys LZW patent will be defunct in
  the US, and again a day later in Canada. That still leaves serveral countries
  in Europe and Japan who have to wait a year (18/20 June 2004 IIRC) before
  being able to use it.

  Putting this or any other LZW-aware software on the Cygwin mirror system is a
  seriously bad idea. We have mirror's in most if not all of the above
  countries and if they distribute LZW-aware software they're in violation of
  their countries patent laws. Same for Joe Hacker who downloads it, too.

Elfyn

On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Ronald Landheer-Cieslak wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Gareth Pearce wrote:
> > erm - not to rain on this ... but is it a good idea if the patent has
> > only expired in america?
> >From http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw:
>
> The U.S. LZW patent expires June 20, 2003, the counterpart Canadian patent
> expires July 7, 2004, the counterpart patents in the United Kingdom,
> France, Germany and Italy expire June 18, 2004, and the Japanese
> counterpart patents expire June 20, 2004.
>
> Let's wait at least until June 21, 2004, OK?
>
> Personally, I (currently) live in France, which would mean that if an
> LZW-enabled libtiff is distributed by Cygwin, I'll probably be breaking
> the law for at least a year.. (unless I move to the US, which I don't
> intend to do just so I can use libtiff legaly)
>
> Sorry, but I don't think this is a good idea..
>
> rlc
>
> >
> > Gareth
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Christopher Faylor" <cgf@redhat.com>
> > To: <cygwin-apps@cygwin.com>
> > Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 3:45 PM
> > Subject: Re: Unisys patent
> >
> >
> > > On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 01:38:28AM -0400, Charles Wilson wrote:
> > > >Expires today.
> > >
> > > Woo hoo!
> > >
> > > >Shall I respin libtiff to include LZW support, and distribute the new
> > > >LZW-capable libtiff via the cygwin mirror system?
> > >
> > > Sure.
> > >
> > > cgf
> > >
> >
>
>

-- 
Elfyn McBratney
Systems Administrator
ABCtales.com / Ubertales.co.uk

Show us yer bulk: biteme@is.ubertales.co.uk