] ``PNG was designed to be the successor to the once-popular GIF format, which
] became decidedly less popular right around New Year's Day 1995 when Unisys and
] CompuServe suddenly announced that programs implementing GIF would require
] royalties, because of Unisys' patent on the LZW compression method used in GIF.''
]
] Note that this is only for writing GIFs, not reading. Basically you need
] to pay Unisys 5000 US$ (IIRC) if you want to make gif files.
Also note that this is only applicable in countries that recognize the LZW
patent (like the US). Most European countries do not recognize it. Amongst
others because the LZW algorithm was published (in a scientific magazin) a
year before the patent was requested. And in Europe it is impossible to get a
patent for an already published algorithm.
Kind regards,
Alex Wulms
--
Visit The MSX Plaza (http://www.inter.nl.net/users/A.P.Wulms) for info on
XelaSoft, Merlasoft, Quadrivium, SD-Snatcher on fMSX, the MSX Hardware list,
XSA Disk images, documentation, Japanese MSX news from Ikeda and lots more.
--
For info, see http://www.stack.nl/~wynke/MSX/listinfo.html
