Jeremias Maerki: > 1. the LZW patent … > A question for you to derive from this is: Is it worth entering a zone > of uncertainty to support a basically obsolete format?
Probably not. I was just looking for an easy animated image format to use as a first format for 'video' elements. > Personally and with my PMC chair hat on, I'd not add any LZW-related > code to software at the ASF without first having received a go by the > ASF's legal council. Alternatively, you can access all subimages of an > animated GIF through ImageIO which effectively shields Batik against the > patent. Of course, it means that you only get support for animated GIF > on J2SE >=1.4. But would that be so bad? Ah I might just use that then. > Interesting links: > http://burnallgifs.org/archives/ > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF > http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw According to that last link, the relevant patents have indeed all expired. > 2. the GIF format > > Personal opinion: Don't use GIF, use PNG (or TIFF withut LZW). Burn all > GIFs! :-) > Problem: PNG does not (directly) support multiple images. MNG and APNG > are possible solutions but they are not very popular. :-( > > Links: > http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng/ > http://www.vlad1.com/~vladimir/projects/apng/ After 30 seconds Googling, the best I could find was LGPL MNG implementations. If there were some usable Java implementation I would just go with that instead of GIF. I’m just looking for the easiest way to get a simple animated image format. > 3. GifDecoder.java > > Kevin Weiner puts the class in the public domain. Ok so far, but what > about this: "LZW decoder adapted from John Cristy's ImageMagick." > ImageMagick is GPL so you could argue that Kevon Weiner is not even > allowed to remove the GPL even if he rewrote the code in Java from code > in ImageMagick. The reason I say this: The developers of GNU Classpath > and Harmony have very strict rules about how the software is to be > implemented. Nobody is allowed to work on the two projects who is > "tainted by the source code of the Sun J2SE implementation". You may not > look into the Sun J2SE source code when you're working on either GNU > Classpath or Harmony. > > I see a big question mark here which needs to be reviewed by the ASF's > legal council. I don't give my go on this class just like that. It's too > suspect. Sorry, Cameron. Ok, fair enough. > Links: > http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php > > 4. Using public domain code > > If some source code is in the public domain and safe to use (legally, > see 3 above), then generally it is possible to include the source code > in our repository provided that the origin and legal info is properly > documented. I think some info would have to end up in the NOTICE file. > Reminds me that I have to add a few things to FOP's NOTICE file. > > Here's what HTTPD does: > http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/NOTICE Acknowledged. I’ll try the imageio route for now. -- Cameron McCormack, http://mcc.id.au/ xmpp:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ▪ ICQ 26955922 ▪ MSN [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Apache XML Graphics Project URL: http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
