> OTOH, if you have a 'freeware' product, you don't owe GIF royalties. The
> royalty is also for the compression method, not the file format.
I'm the author of several freeware programs (Fractint, and a
contributing author to POV-Ray and Piclab). The following came direct
from a phone call with a Unisys patent lawyer:
If a freeware program is included with a commercial product such as a
book CD (I am alas also an author) the royalties are owed! Even a CD
of, say, free Internet software owes royalties if it includes any
LZW. The royalties do not depend on the contribution of the program
to the product. If some tiny obscure program that has some form of
LZW added as an afterthought is nestled in the far corner of a CD,
then full royalties are owed. The lawyer would not budge from this
point. Of course he was one of a number of Unisys's Welch Patent
Office whose entire career is enforing the patent.
>I know of some developers' that are ignoring UNISYS, assuming that
>because the patent was not defsnded from the start, that it is not
>enforceable. IANAL: (I am not a lawyer) consult legal advice before
>embarking on this route.
Even if it is not enforceable, the royalties are a lot cheaper than
a legal defsnse. This is the extortion built in to the situation.
>I still recommend requiring (or strongly recommending) JPEG for lossly
>compression, and PNG for lossless copmression. Optionally, GIF, but
>not required.
I sure agree with this! Especially if, speaking entirely
hypothetically, the WWW committee were to endorse PNG.
Tim