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Re: libungif (was: Re: 2nd summary (was Re: [HEADSUP] ALL Maintainers, please reply.))


On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 10:43:46 +0200, in gmane.os.cygwin.applications
you wrote:

>On Sep 28 20:10, Nicholas Wourms wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:06:31 -0500, in gmane.os.cygwin.applications
>> you wrote:
[SNIP]
>I don't think the FSF information given on
>http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html qualifies as FUD.
>

Well, every time we reach the date that the FSF says the patent
expires, they "revise" it to include "new" information which wasn't
previously known.  I know for a fact that they've moved the goalpost
at least 3 times since the original UNISYS expiration date.  I find it
rather suspicious, as if opposing LZW is institutional and they refuse
to change.

Since I am not RedHat and you are, of course you should do what you
think is right.  However, I would find it very bizaare to see IBM sue
over the LZW patent after they just spent literally millions of $$$
fending off a lawsuit from SCO based on similar concepts.  They are
heavily focused on consulting/software and it would not be in their
best interest to alienate the FSF community.  That is why I call it
FUD.

Frankly, I don't understand why either RMS or ESR doesn't just talk to
senior management at IBM and clear this up once and for all.

>
>Fedora also only supports uncompressing gifs via libungif.  Other
>packages, like gimp, don't support creating LZW compressed GIFs,
>unly uncompressed or run-length encoded.
>

I was specifically referring to libtiff & zip, which AFAIK have
re-merged the external LZW code.

>This means, let's stick with libungif until at least 2006-08-12.

If that's what you want, then I'm sure you are doing what is best for
RedHat.

I will note that I was chatting with the upstream author a few months
back.  He told me, at least at the time, that he would be dropping the
non-LZW package soon in favor of reunifying the giflib and libungif
packages (for easier maintainence).  I guess we'll cross that bridge
when we come to it.

Cheers,
Nicholas


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