Re: Licensed GIF software for Web use ?

At 12:26p -0800 11/08/99, Andrew Daviel wrote:
>Does anyone know what software is licensed by Unisys to create GIF images
>(or PostScript 2 or PDF, come to that) for placing on the Web ?

>Unisys say in [2] that users of software by Microsoft, Corel etc. are
>"probably covered" but suggest contacting individual vendors.

I contacted MicroFrontier, and Color It! 4.0 is licen$ed by Uni$y$.
(It made a GIF half the byte size of the freeware tool [clip2gif] I'd
previously used, so it worked out well for me. ;) )

>I suspect the easiest course of action for users of GIMP, GD and
>many other tools is simply to stop using GIFs and convert to JPEG
>or PNG.

I don't know where Unisys came up with their $5000 fee. I think it would
be much better to have either a per-GIF or per-KB (one-time) fee. Like, if
I serve 50 GIF images, I'd be willing to pay $50 ($1/file), but not $5000.
(I'm referencing the recent [August '99] change-for-the-worse info, which
I just read about in the December issue of... was it WebTechniques?)


-Walter
 who will probably just resave old images with Color It, and reupload :)

Received on Wednesday, 10 November 1999 01:55:08 UTC