On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 18:28:14 +0800 Abel Cheung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Oh yes, thanks for the reminder, I have not managed to figure that > out. I'll disable it for now... > Anyway, it's been turned on by default, I didn't do anything :-) Good call. This is from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html#venuenote "Unisys and IBM both applied for patents in 1983. Unisys (and perhaps IBM) applied for these patents in a number of countries. Of the places whose patent databases we were able to search, the latest expiration date seems to be Wednesday 7 July 2004 (1). 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. (1). We were able to search the patent databases of the USA, Canada, Japan, and the European Union. The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, but it does not expire in most of Europe until 18 June 2004, in Japan until 20 June 2004 and in Canada until 7 July 2004. We are still searching these databases for the IBM patent." Charles -- BOFH excuse #452: Somebody ran the operating system through a spelling checker. ------------------------- Mandrake Linux 9.2 on PurpleDragon Kernel- 2.4.22-0.5.1tmb_mdkenterprise <http://www.eslrahc.com> -------------------------
pgp00000.pgp
Description: PGP signature
