Subject: Re: image support (was Re: Core-dump during startup on AIX-4.3.2)
From: Dom Lachowicz (dominicl@seas.upenn.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 02 2000 - 21:52:19 CST
Paul Rohr wrote:
> At 09:49 PM 3/2/00 -0500, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
> > Nope, license is required for both compression and decompression.
> > See <http://www.unisys.com/unisys/lzw/>.
>
> OK. That makes it easy then.
>
> Unless Unisys would like to donate a fully-paid patent license for use in
> AbiSuite, we won't be decoding embedded GIFs. (Does anyone have any
> statistics on how prevalent these are in various word processor file
> formats?)
>
> In the mean time, though, I'm sorely tempted to stick something like the
> following prose at the appropriate place in our UI.
>
> Unisys does not want you to see this image.
> Patent 4,558,302 expires Jun 20, 2003.
> Look for an updated version of AbiWord the following day.
>
> What a pain in the butt.
>
> Paul
Has anyone emailed them or asked them about linking a library into Abiword
for uncompressing Gifs? They might be sympathetic to an open source project.
Here's a quote from their license page:
"In certain cases, no license fees may be required, but this needs to be
evidenced by a written
agreement or written statement signed by an authorized Unisys
representative."
Just a thought...
-Dom
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