Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Free and legal RLE compresed GIF code?
Author: Don Hopkins Posted: 8/31/1999; 3:57:42 PM Topic: GIFs get expensive Msg #: 10350 (In response to 10172) Prev/Next: 10349 / 10351
A very interesting story about LZW and Unisys:http://www.serverobjects.com/lzw.html
ServerObjects (the developer of AspImage) tried to get an LZW license from Unisys in 1997, and they were blown off because they were a "small fry". Unisys actually refused to give them the license they requested! Then, out of the blue in 1999, Unisys's double dipping two faced lawyers demanded that ServerObjects buy a license and also give them ROYALTIES!
But since they couldn't get a license when they tried, now they're using RLE for their GIF files, instead of LZW. To put the it in the passive voice, off has been fucked by Unisys's lawyers, because:
"AspImage Supports RLE GIF, Not LZW
GIF support in AspImage uses RLE encoding. RLE is not patented by Unisys as the LZW algorithm is. Therefore we are free to provide copies of AspImage which use RLE encoding. The LZW is better than RLE in compressing images. The downside to LZW is that Unisys wants $1500/per year/per Web server from you, last we heard, to use LZW."
This is not the only time Unisys refused to deal with "small fries":
http://smallest.hypermart.net/gif.htm
I wonder if the licenses that Unisys made with Netscape and Microsoft stipulate that they get a discount on the licensing fee, for every year they drag their feet about supporting PNG.
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