Hi, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
The lack of Pantone support in GIMP is a useful example of how software users are harmed by software patents, but to make this claim I need to be able to point out which patents cause this problem.
Is that really a patent issue? Pantone support need be nothing more complicated than a name -> colour lookup table. (That's how InDesign implements it - an EPS file defining a shedload of CMYKCustomColors).
I would have thought that the issue with Pantone colours would be Trademark and/or Copyright.
If no-one minds, I'll submit the information here too: http://www.gnu.org/patent-examp/patent-examples.html#GIMP
Any other solid info about patent problems in GIMP would also be appreciated. On- or off-list.
Probably best to keep this off-list; Free Software developers are better off keeping themselves entirely ignorant of patent issues, because the penalties for knowingly infringing a patent are generally much harsher than for doing so accidentally.
Publishing any examples you may find could, unfortunately, backfire for the same reason.
All the best, -- Alastair M. Robinson _______________________________________________ Gimp-developer mailing list Gimp-developer@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
