Still, as long as Wikipedia neither codes nor decodes GIFs, how can it be in violation?
It can't. Derek is completely mistaken on that score. Only software that encodes or decodes GIF has any problem, and even the case for decoders is pretty thin. So the patent itself is no reason to forgo use of GIF in web sites. But it does make a political statement to avoid their use, in that in the long run, avoiding GIFs on web pages may in time reduce their use to such low levels that free software developers might be able to produce more non-patent-encumbered software for producing images.
And PNG is a superior format anyway (and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of its developers--I was on the committee that created GIF too). 0
I'd be in favor of eliminating all GIFs from the site. Although I'm personally comfortable with GIFs, I think we have a large userbase from the free software community who aren't. And software patents are evil.
--Jimbo
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
Still, as long as Wikipedia neither codes nor decodes GIFs, how can it be in violation?
It can't. Derek is completely mistaken on that score. Only software that encodes or decodes GIF has any problem, and even the case for decoders is pretty thin. So the patent itself is no reason to forgo use of GIF in web sites. But it does make a political statement to avoid their use, in that in the long run, avoiding GIFs on web pages may in time reduce their use to such low levels that free software developers might be able to produce more non-patent-encumbered software for producing images.
And PNG is a superior format anyway (and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of its developers--I was on the committee that created GIF too). 0
I'd be in favor of eliminating all GIFs from the site. Although I'm personally comfortable with GIFs, I think we have a large userbase
from the free software community who aren't. And software patents
are
evil.
You're right, but there are many people who don't know about these things. If they can't upload a GIF they created they might not upload it at all, or they might save the picture as JPEG what is very suboptimal in most cases. So there should at least be a statement why we don't accept GIFs, and that they should use PNG instead. It would be even better if people are still allowed to upload GIFs after a message that we'd like PNGs much more. The GIFs could be listed on a page and someone with a batch converter could change them once in a while. And while we are trying to treat images like articles, maybe the GIF could REDIRECT to the PNG?
Kurt
----- Original Message ----- From: lcrocker@nupedia.com To: wikipedia-l@nupedia.com Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 3:18 AM Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] file uploads
Still, as long as Wikipedia neither codes nor decodes GIFs, how can it be in violation?
It can't. Derek is completely mistaken on that score. Only software that encodes or decodes GIF has any problem, and even the case for decoders is pretty thin. So the patent itself is no reason to forgo use of GIF in web sites. But it does make a political statement to avoid their use, in that in the long run, avoiding GIFs on web pages may in time reduce their use to such low levels that free software developers might be able to produce more non-patent-encumbered software for producing images.
And PNG is a superior format anyway (and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of its developers--I was on the committee that created GIF too).
Mistaken ? In 1999 Unisys stated that its policy is to require a $5000 fee from websites that carry GIF images made by unlicensed software -- even nonprofit websites created and displayed with free software. Can Wikipedia prove that every GIF image uploaded to it has been created by a properly licensed GIF encoder ? I think not.
Cheers
Derek
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org