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

[Nicholas Wourms]

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:06:31 -0500, in gmane.os.cygwin.applications
you wrote:

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>Lapo Luchini wrote:
>> I'd say "up for grabs".
>> I always used to say it's "low priority", but being so low it didn't
>> get updated in months probably means that someone else may well be
>> more interested in it...
>
>I'm interested in keeping this going.  But before I package it, was a
>decision ever made about including giflib in the net release (in terms
>of legalities)?  This will make a big difference in how I would package
>libungif.
>

We already had this discussion awhile back, and despite the FUD from
the FSF, the patent has long since expired worldwide.  The only
company which might have a claim is IBM (which expires at the end of
this year), do you really think they'd care (given their recnt battle
with SCO)?  Most other opensource packages with LZW capabilities have
already quitely re-integrated it back into the default source.


Cheers,
Nicholas