The Haus

Thursday, June 19, 2003

GIF Patent Expired -- 11:51 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Everybody shed a tear. The compression algorithm that you love to hate, LZW, the power behind GIF files, expired at midnight EDT in the United States. Non-U.S. folks will have to wait until about this time next year. Anybody remember "burn all GIFs day"? I'm sure The Master will chime in on this one. I assume this means that the GIMP will soon have proper GIF support. I wouldn't even care if $%^#!@* IE would support PNG transparency properly. Grrr . . .

UPDATE! MacGIMP had a GIF-enabled version ready for download at midnight. They (and others) have dubbed the 20th "GIF Liberation Day".

The Master comments: Yes, I remember "Burn all GIFs day", and I also remember having to worry about the use of .gifs on our corporate website, and whether Unisys would decide to attack us for licensing fees. Now, we have to worry about it with Jpegs. I can't tell you how much I hate software patents.

News for 06/19/2003

Recent Headlines

January 5, 2015: It Returns!
August 10, 2007: SCO SUCKS IT DOWN!
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May 20, 2007: PhpBB 3.0 RC 1 Released
February 2, 2007: DOOM3 1.31 Patch

January 27, 2007: Join the World Community Grid
January 17, 2007: Flash Player 9 for Linux
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December 19, 2006: Pocket Tunes 4.0 Released
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