Re: GIF support in the GD library.

I agree that PNG is better. However, my site must be compatible with all the browsers, not just the newer ones that support PNG. It makes my life alot easier to be able to use an image type that is veiwable in all the browsers instead of telling people that they must have a version 4 browser to see the picture. Having to have 2 or 3 versions of any client side code is bad enough. I'd rather not do the same for pictures. It really would be nice if the support was put back in to the GD library. It is obvious that there are ways around the Unisys legal problems. Personally, I feel that GIF support would be worth exploring those paths. jordan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Strider Centaur" <strider@scifi-fantasy.com> To: "Jordan Pickup" <jordan@cynetech.com>; <php-general@lists.php.net> Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 11:44 AM Subject: Re: [PHP] GIF support in the GD library. > The way I understand it, its all about licensing and you can blame it all > on Unisys( I think it was Unisys ). The encoding in GIF is based on work > created by Unisys. And Unisys was out to sue people who used it. After all > they designed it so why shouldn't they get a piece of the action. > > Well to avoid potential problems, the GD developers decided to drop GIF > support. Now days there are GIF creation tools totally free of Unisys's > control and they can be freely distributed. Im not sure if GD is planning on > adding GIF support back, but since PNG is simply better all the way around, I > would suggest starting to use PNG whenever possible. > > ImageMagick either licensed the GIF format, or simply uses code not > derived from the original GIF code, just like GIMP does. > > Jordan Pickup wrote: > > > What is the reason that GIF support was removed from the GD library? > > > > I was under the impression that GIF support was removed because they didn't > > like it being given away for free. But someone suggested a product called > > ImageMagick a few minutes ago that can support GIF generation. And, they > > give it away for free. > > > > So what is the real reason that GIF support was removed? Just Curious... > > > > -- > > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > > For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help@lists.php.net > > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net > > -- > Strider Centaur > HTTP://www.Scifi-Fantasy.com > > " It is my observation that unless you really understand the issues, you are > hardly in a position to criticize. Nearly all Linux users have used Windows, > but very few Windows users have used Linux. " -- Me > > > >