On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
> Stephan Michels wrote:
>
> > 2.
> > Gif is the best output format, because most of the browser can handle the
> > transparency of GIF images.
>
> In the US (and other countries, europe is safe, at least for now), there
> are patent issues with GIF generation. How do you plan to handle these?
We use the the GIFOutputStream from http://www.shetline.com/java.shtml
The comment from this class:
> Note: This code does *NOT* implement LZW compression. While the output
> of the compression routine is compatible with LZW, only a simple run-
> length compression is performed. The degree of compression as compared
> to LZW is not as high, but execution time is faster, and LZW licensing
> issues are avoided. Depending on image size and image complexity, the
> differences in compression may or may not have practical significance
> for particular applications.
This seems that only the LZW comppression is under the patent, and this
class doesn't use this compression. This doesn't also make sense, because
the GIF are very small.
On other hand the author of this class wrote in his class:
> This code is free for public use in any non-commercial application. All
> other uses are restricted without prior consent of the author, Kerry
> Shetline. The author assumes no liability for the suitability of this
> code in any application.
But this makes a conlict with the apache licence, IMHO. I can
ask him, if he make a exception for the project.
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