[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[GNU-traductores] old-gnudist:/home/www/html/philosophy/gif.html -- New
|
From: |
old-gnudist's file diff daemon |
|
Subject: |
[GNU-traductores] old-gnudist:/home/www/html/philosophy/gif.html -- New file |
|
Date: |
Tue, 15 Jan 2002 06:29:03 -0800 (PST) |
This is an automated report from old-gnudist.
This appears to be a new file or has only recently been added to
the list of monitored files:
9 -rw-rw-r-- 1 webcvs www 9112 Sep 15 2000
/home/www/html/philosophy/gif.html
Contents:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Why no GIFs - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)</TITLE>
<LINK REV="made" HREF="mailto:address@hidden";>
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#1F00FF" ALINK="#FF0000"
VLINK="#9900DD">
<H3>Why there are no GIF files on GNU web pages</H3>
<A HREF="/graphics/philosophicalgnu.html"><IMG
SRC="/graphics/philosophical-gnu-sm.jpg"
ALT=" [image of a Philosophical Gnu] "
WIDTH="160" HEIGHT="200"></A>
<!-- Please keep this list alphabetical!!! -->
[
<A HREF="/philosophy/gif.html">English</A>
| <A HREF="/philosophy/gif.fr.html">French</A>
| <A HREF="/philosophy/gif.ja.html">Japanese</A>
| <A HREF="/philosophy/gif.ko.html">Korean</A>
| <A HREF="/philosophy/gif.ru.html">Russian</A>
]
<P>
There are no GIFs on the GNU web site because of the patents (Unisys
and IBM) covering the LZW compression algorithm which is used in
making GIF files. These patents make it impossible to have free
software to generate proper GIFs. They also apply to the
<STRONG>compress</STRONG> program, which is why GNU does not use it or its
format.
<P>
Both Unisys and IBM applied for their patents in 1983, which means
they will now expire in the year 2003. Until then, anyone who
releases a free program for making GIF files is likely to be sued. We
don't know any reason to think that the patent owners would lose these
lawsuits.
<P>
If we released such a program, Unisys and IBM might think it wiser
(for public relations reasons) not to sue a charity like the FSF.
They could instead sue the users of the program, including the
companies who redistribute GNU software. We feel it would not be
responsible behavior for us to set up this situation.
<P>
Many people think that Unisys has given permission for distributing
free software to make GIF format. Unfortunately that is not what
Unisys has actually done. Here is what Unisys actually said about the
matter in 1995:
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<STRONG>
Unisys does not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for
non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those for
use on the on-line services.
Concerning developers of software for the Internet network, the
same principle applies. Unisys will not pursue previous inadvertent
infringement by developers producing versions of software products for
the Internet prior to 1995. The company does not require licensing,
or fees to be paid for non-commercial, non-profit offerings on the
Internet, including "Freeware".
</STRONG>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
Unfortunately, this doesn't permit
<A HREF="/philosophy/free-sw.html">free software</A>, only
<A HREF="/philosophy/categories.html#semi-freeSoftware">semi-free
software (18k characters)</A> which cannot be used in a free operating system
such as
GNU. It also does not permit <em>at all</em> the use of LZW
for other purposes such as compression of files. This is why we
had to develop <A HREF="/software/gzip/gzip.html">GNU zip</A>
as a replacement for <STRONG>compress</STRONG>.
<P>
<A HREF="/philosophy/selling.html">Commercial redistribution of free
software</A> is very important, and we want the GNU system as a whole
to be redistributed commercially. This means we can't add a
GIF-generating program to GNU, not under the Unisys terms.
<P>
The <A HREF="/fsf/fsf.html">Free Software Foundation</A> is a
non-commercial, non-profit organization, so strictly speaking the
income from our sales of <A HREF="/order/order.html">CD-ROMs</A> is
not ``profit''. Perhaps this means we could include a GIF program on
our CD-ROM and claim to be acting within the scope of the Unisys
permission--or perhaps not. But since we know that other
redistributors of GNU would be unable to include it, doing this would
not be very useful.
<P>
Shortly after Unisys made its announcement, when the net in general
was reassured thinking that Unisys had given permission for free
GIF-generating software, we wrote to the Unisys legal department
asking for clarification of these issues. We did not receive a
response.
<P>
Even if Unisys really did give permission for free software to
generate GIFs, we would still have to deal with the IBM patent. Both
the IBM and the Unisys patents cover the same ``invention''--the LZW
compression algorithm. (This could reflect an error on the part of
the US Patent and Trademark Office, which is famous for incompetence
and poor judgment.)
<P>
Decoding GIFs is a different issue. The Unisys and IBM patents are
both written in such a way that they do not apply to a program which
can only uncompress LZW format and cannot compress. Therefore we can
and will include support for displaying GIF files in GNU software.
<P>
Given this situation, we could still include GIF files in our web
pages if we wanted to. Many other people would be happy to generate
them for us, and we would not be sued for having GIF files on our server.
<P>
But we feel that if we can't distribute the software to enable people
to generate GIF files properly, then we should not have other people
run such software for us. Besides, if we can't provide software in
GNU to generate GIF files, we have to recommend an alternative. We
ourselves should use the alternative that we recommend.
<P>
In 1999, Unisys had the following to say about the issue of their
patent:
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<STRONG>
Unisys has frequently been asked whether a Unisys license is required
in order to use LZW software obtained by downloading from the
Internet or from other sources. The answer is simple. In all cases, a
written license agreement or statement signed by an authorized Unisys
representative is required from Unisys for all use, sale or distribution
of any software (including so-called "freeware") and/or hardware
providing LZW conversion capability (for example, downloaded software)
</STRONG>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
With this statement, Unisys is trying to take back what they said in 1995
when they gave parts of the patent to the public. The legality of
such a move is questionable.
<P>
A further issue is that the LZW patents--and software patents in
general--are an offense against the freedom of programmers generally,
and all programmers need to work together against software patents.
<P>
So even if we could find a solution to enable the free software
community to generate GIFs, that isn't really a solution, not for the
problem as a whole. The solution is switching to another format and
not using GIF any more.
<P>
Therefore, we don't use GIF, and we hope you won't use it either.
<P>
It is possible to make non-compressed images that act like GIFs, in
that they work with programs that decode GIF format. This can be done
without infringing patents. These pseudo-GIFs are useful for some
purposes.
<P>
It is also possible to create GIFs using a patent-free run length encoding
but this doesn't achieve the compression that one normally expects in a
GIF.
<P>
We decided not to use these pseudo-GIFs on our web site
because they are not a satisfactory solution to the community's
problem. They work, but they are very large. What the web needs is a
patent-free compressed format, not large pseudo-GIFs.
<P> <a href="http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/index.html";>PNG format</a> is a
patent-free compressed format. We hope it will become widely
supported; then we will use it. We do have
<A HREF="/graphics/graphics.html">PNG versions</A> of the images on this
server.
<P>
For more information about the GIF patent problems, see
<A HREF="http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/Gif/Gif.html";>the League for
Programming Freedom GIF page</A>. Through that page you can find more
information about the problem of software patents in general.
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html";>The
browser support page</A> lists browsers which are compatible with
the PNG format and comments on how well they support it.
<P>
There's a library called <A
HREF="http://prtr-13.ucsc.edu/~badger/software/libungif/index.shtml";>libungif</A>
that reads gif files and writes uncompressed gifs to circumvent the
Unisys patent.
<P>
<a href="http://burnallgifs.org";>http://burnallgifs.org</a> is a website
devoted to discourage the use of GIF files on your website.
<HR>
<H4><A HREF="/philosophy/philosophy.html">Other Texts to Read</A></H4>
<HR>
Return to <A HREF="/home.html">GNU's home page</A>.
<P>
Please send FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to
<A HREF="mailto:address@hidden";><EM>address@hidden</EM></A>.
There are also <A HREF="/home.html#ContactInfo">other ways to
contact</A> the FSF.
<P>
Please send comments on these web pages to
<A HREF="mailto:address@hidden";><EM>address@hidden</EM></A>,
send other questions to
<A HREF="mailto:address@hidden";><EM>address@hidden</EM></A>.
<P>
Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA
<P>
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.<P>
Updated:
<!-- hhmts start -->
14 Sep 2000 neel
<!-- hhmts end -->
<HR>
</BODY>
</HTML>
| [Prev in Thread] |
Current Thread |
[Next in Thread] |
- [GNU-traductores] old-gnudist:/home/www/html/philosophy/gif.html -- New file,
old-gnudist's file diff daemon <=