Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Just ran into the GIF patent extortion!

Author:Bob Frankston
Posted:7/25/2000; 8:44:08 AM
Topic:Just ran into the GIF patent extortion!
Msg #:19017 (In response to 18994)
Prev/Next:19016 / 19018

Of course we'll "route around" this and all patents eventually expire. The issue is the delay and aberrations that are introduced. In this case GIF is good-enough to limit the support for PNG. If one's priority is to avoid GIF, then one can put the effort into PNG. But that diverts effort that can be spent elsewhere. In the absence of bread one can opt for cake, in the absence of one-click, one can do something else.

The real issue is whether the patents system is facilitating or impeding the development and deployment of products and ideas.

For the moment I've found JPEG is best solution since it is smaller than GIF and widely supported and I found that cropping is closer to what I want than transparency.

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