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Title: Data Formats/Open Standards - Why There Are Not GIF Files on GNU Pages Advocates against the use of image formats that are protected by patents. Presents a brief history of the GIF format as well as its open alternatives.
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Why There Are No GIF files on GNU Web Pages

While this story is a historicalillustration of the danger of software patents, theseparticular patents are now no longer a concern (see footnote below). For details of our websitepoliciesregarding GIFs, see our webguidelines.There are no GIFs on the GNU web site because of thepatents (Unisys and IBM) coveringthe LZW compression algorithmwhich is used in making GIF files. These patents make itimpossible to have free software to generate proper GIFs.They also apply to the compress program, which is whyGNU does not use it or its format.Unisys and IBM both applied for patents in 1983. Unisys (and perhapsIBM) applied for these patents in a number of countries. Of theplaces whose patent databases we were able to search, the latestexpiration date seems to be 1 October 2006.1 Until then,anyone who releases a free program for making GIF filesis likely to be sued. We don't know any reason to think that thepatent owners would lose these lawsuits.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 thecompanies who redistribute GNU software. We feel it would not beresponsible behavior for us to set up this situation.Many people think that Unisys has given permission for distributingfree software to make GIF format. Unfortunately that isnot what Unisys has actually done. Here is what Unisys actually saidabout the matter in 1995:Unisys does not require licensing, or fees to be paid, fornon-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications,including those for use on the on-line services. Concerningdevelopers of software for the Internet network, the same principleapplies. Unisys will not pursue previous inadvertent infringement bydevelopers producing versions of software products for the Internetprior to 1995. The company does not require licensing, or fees to bepaid for non-commercial, non-profit offerings on the Internet,including “Freeware”.Unfortunately, this doesn't permitfree software, onlysemi-freesoftware which cannot be used in a free operating system such asGNU. It also does not permit at all the useof LZW for other purposes such as compression of files.This is why we think it is still best to reject LZW, andswitch to alternatives such as GNUzip and PNG format.Commercial redistribution of freesoftware is very important, and we want the GNU system as a wholeto be redistributed commercially. This means we can't adda GIF-generating program to GNU, not under the Unisysterms.The Free Software Foundation is anon-commercial, non-profit organization, so strictly speaking theincome from our sales of CD-ROMsis not “profit”. Perhaps this means we could includea GIF program on our CD-ROM and claim to be acting withinthe scope of the Unisys permission—or perhaps not. But since weknow that other redistributors of GNU would be unable to include it,doing this would not be very useful.Shortly after Unisys made its announcement, when the net in generalwas reassured thinking that Unisys had given permission forfree GIF-generating software, we wrote to the Unisyslegal department asking for clarification of these issues. We did notreceive a response.Even if Unisys really did give permission for free software togenerate GIFs, we would still have to deal with the IBMpatent. Both the IBM and the Unisys patents cover the same“invention”—the LZW compressionalgorithm. (This could reflect an error on the part of the US Patentand Trademark Office, which is famous for incompetence and poorjudgment.)Decoding GIFs is a different issue. The Unisys and IBMpatents are both written in such a way that they do not apply to aprogram which can only uncompress LZW format and cannotcompress. Therefore we can and will include support fordisplaying GIF files in GNU software.Given this situation, we could still include GIF files inour web pages if we wanted to. Many other people would be happy togenerate them for us, and we would not be sued forhaving GIF files on our server.But we feel that if we can't distribute the software to enable peopleto generate GIF files properly, then we should not haveother people run such software for us. Besides, if we can't providesoftware in GNU to generate GIF files, we have torecommend an alternative. We ourselves should use the alternativethat we recommend.In 1999, Unisys had the following to say about the issue of theirpatent:Unisys has frequently been asked whether a Unisys licenseis required in order to use LZW software obtained bydownloading from the Internet or from other sources. The answer issimple. In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signedby an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for alluse, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called“freeware”) and/or hardware providing LZWconversion capability (for example, downloaded software).With this statement, Unisys is trying to take back what they said in1995 when they gave parts of the patent to the public. The legality ofsuch a move is questionable.A further issue is that the LZW patents—andsoftware patents in general—are an offense against the freedomof programmers generally, and all programmers need to work togetheragainst software patents.So even if we could find a solution to enable the free softwarecommunity to generate GIFs, that isn't really a solution,not for the problem as a whole. The solution is switching to anotherformat and not using GIF any more.Therefore, we don't use GIF, and we hope you won't use iteither.It is possible to make non-compressed images that actlike GIFs, in that they work with programs thatdecode GIF format. This can be done without infringingpatents. These pseudo-GIFs are useful for some purposes.It is also possible to create GIFs using a patent-freerun length encoding but this doesn't achieve the compression that onenormally expects in a GIF.We decided not to use these pseudo-GIFs on our web sitebecause they are not a satisfactory solution to the community'sproblem. They work, but they are very large. What the web needs is apatent-free compressed format, not large pseudo-GIFs. PNGformat is a patent-free compressed format. We hope it will becomewidely supported; then we will use it. We dohave PNG versionsof the images on this server.For more information about the GIF patent problems,see the League forProgramming Freedom GIF page. Through that page youcan find more information about the problem of software patents ingeneral.The browsersupport page lists browsers which are compatible withthe PNG format and comments on how well they support it.There's a librarycalled libungif thatreads gif files and writes uncompressed gifs to circumvent the Unisyspatent.http://burnallgifs.org is awebsite devoted to discouraging the use of GIF files onyour website.Footnote:1. We were able to searchthe patent databases of the USA, Canada, Japan, and the EuropeanUnion. The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europeit expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan the patent expired on 20 June2004 and in Canada it expired on 7 July 2004. The U.S. IBM patentexpired 11 August 2006, The Software Freedom Law Center says thatafter 1 October 2006, there will be no significant patent claimsinterfering with employment of the GIF format. back to topPlease send FSF & GNU inquiries to gnu@gnu.org.There are also other ways to contact the FSF.Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions towebmasters@gnu.org.Please see the TranslationsREADME for information on coordinating and submittingtranslations of this article.Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 FreeSoftware Foundation, Inc.,51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110, USAVerbatim copying and distribution of thisentire article is permitted in any medium without royaltyprovided this notice is preserved.Updated:$Date: 2008/06/26 11:48:59 $Translations of this pageCatalà [ca]Deutsch [de]English [en]Español [es]Français [fr]עברית [he]日本語 [ja]한국어 [ko]Polski [pl]Română [ro]Русский [ru]Српски [sr]
 

Advocates

against

the

use

of

image

formats

that

are

protected

by

patents.

Presents

a

brief

history

of

the

GIF

format

as

well

as

its

open

alternatives.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html

Why There Are Not GIF Files on GNU Pages 2008 October

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Advocates against the use of image formats that are protected by patents. Presents a brief history of the GIF format as well as its open alternatives.

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