Re: GIF support in the GD library. - OT

Bit late to the game, I realize, but this issue still bugs me - it's slightly offtopic, as it doesn't directly relate to PHP, only insomuch as we use PHP to create GIFs. The author of the GD library has - shoot I can't find it now! - a page or two written about his involvement with PNG, and the decision to remove GIF entirely seems as much motivated by his PNG involvement as it does by the potential of a Unisys lawsuit. Removing the LZW and putting in RLE encryption, while it would have not been simple, I'm sure, would have given people an option to use a current library to do both PNG and GIF. GIF is still necessary for people who want/need to create animated graphics, as, tmk, PNG has no animation support yet, and PNG support in browsers is still not what it needs to be even for full support of static PNG files. This is one area where the NT platform has non-NT beat, it seems, because the serverobjects.com object offers both PNG *and* RLE-GIF. Not sure if imagemagick supports RLE-GIF (it's been a long time since I used Imagemagick - does it have it's own GIF library, or does it use GD?) but in any event there is not a PHP Imagemagick library, is there? Chris Adams wrote: > > So how does GIMP get around it if there is no workaround? There are copies > > of GIMP floating around all over. > > Basically, you're probably safe if nobody is making money off of the > product. Most GIMP users are hobbyists and safe. If you're using it > commercially, Unisys expects a check. The GIMP uses a library for GIF > support, which means there are a very few people who at risk legally. GD is > provided by a company and thus has much more to lose in a lawsuit. > > http://www.serverobjects.com/lzw.html has a description of what > the makers > of AspImage went through trying to get a license. > > Interestingly enough, the RLE compression supported in GIFs is free. As far > as I know, GIF+RLE is completely free (even if the compression sucks). > > -- > 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 -- ========================== Michael Kimsal http://www.tapinternet.com 734-480-9961