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This is from the Unisys definitions page.

(The following is reprinted from Unisis without permission ;-)


A Billboard Web site

1.is fully open to the general public without cost or other consideration
(that is, no restricted access or user cost of any kind or form)
2.does not display any third-party advertising
3.does not require any membership, access code, password or business
relationship with the user for access to any portion of the Web site
4.does not provide for the online ordering or purchase of goods or
services via the Web site


My question is.... What does #2 mean? If you display 3rd party ads then your site is not a "billboard" site and desn't have to worry about a liscence? Seems like they wouldn't want to have one banner ad nullify an entire site from their liscence but that's the way I read it.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

-pos

The Unisys patent is only on the process of compressing or decompressing via LZW. Images aren't covered. The reason they are going after websites, are to "protect" the website against liability if they use unlicensed products to create their GIFs.

Their website license is outlined here: Stupid Unisys page

There's several solutions:

• Go with PNG or JPEG. Long term, this is of course the best, to show Unisys we don't like assholes with software patents...
• Use a program that has licensed LZW for creating images for web content (notice that Unisys operate with very restrictive licenses, so a program may have been licensed for too restricted use for web usage of the images)
• Refuse to give out details on how you create your GIFs. Also make sure that there's no comment in the GIF saying what program you used. May be risky, but if Unisys can get a court order to get you to reveal what software you've used to compress the images, then it's time for a revolution...
• Find someone with a machine outside the US. Create PNG's, and get them to convert the images to PNG with unlicensed software in a country where the patent isn't valid, and make sure you document the process... Then refuse to give out details to Unisys if asked, and piss them off, get them to sue you for infringement without any proof, find a good lawyer who does pro bono work, and slap them with a counter suit for frivolous lawsuit...
• Keep your gifs on a server somewhere the patent isn't valid...

After reviewing this site:

http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStor y/lzw-license.html

It looks like this thing is for real, but there's a bit too much confusion. Essentially, it looks like a web site operator would need to get one of these licenses if they either write their own gif-making software or if the people/products that they use to get GIF's make the images without giving Unisys a piece of the cake. So, if you use Photoshop, you're fine. However, I'm not sure what the implications would be for something like the GIMP. Since I'm not sure if the creators of the GIMP paid Unisys their "fair share," I think it would be on me to pay the fee. Damn.

My best advice is for everyone (and I do mean everyone) to contact the Unisys Licensing Department at 215-986-5693 (or fax at 215-986-3090) to ensure that you're safe. If they expect me to pay anything, I'll be sure to keep whoever answers the phone talking for a couple hours. I'm sure they'll have enough people to handle a phone slashdotting. Or maybe not. We'll see.

This page does not seem to be five years old to me...

If your web site uses GIF files, then Unisys wants $5000. Why isn't PNG more widely used yet?

I was taking a look at Unisys' LZW statement and saw this:

Currently applicable information as to Unisys licensing policies for products using LZW (GIF,
TIFF-LZW, PostScript, Portable Document Format (PDF), V.42bis, etc.)

PostScript uses LZW? Does this mean Ghostscript and Ghostview are going to be affected?

Now that they consider LZW profitable, they continue to make their rounds on enforcing their LZW patent ( Patent #4,558,302). But they didn't always consider it profitable enough to actually enforce. They sat silent as CompServe promoted the GIF 87 standard as an open and free graphic file format. Two years later when the open & free format was revised to GIF 89 and GIF 89a, Unisys continued to sit silent. It wasn't until 1993 when GIF had taken on popularity due to it's free nature that Unisys choose to actually take action. If they had taken action back before 1990 instead of 6 years after GIF's original introduction then programmers/users looking for a free file format would not have accepted GIF/LZW and would have looked for an alternative. By remaining blind to the most popular computer image format in BBS history, Unisys ensured an entrenched critical mass of patent infrigement to tax. If Unisys had available to it an even dirtier and non-professional method of making a buck, I'm glad I haven't heard about it.

The League for Programming Freedom has some good information on the GIF Controversy. And, since there is always two sides to every story, Unisys has written their take on the issue. This document explains their stand on requiring licensing from EVERYONE including for what they refered to as "so-called 'freeware.'" They also have a special email address set aside to answer licensing questions. You may wish to email them to find out more on why they refuse to provide a license which is fair to the "so-called 'freeware'" software developer.

Fortantly, this form of Unisys terror will come to an end. Libungif provides a work-around while resulting in files larger than a xpm or bmp containing the same image. The Unisys action also hopefully will help further promote the use of PNG. Most users of web browsers that don't support PNG have much more to worry about than PNGs showing up as a broken image--the public keys for the SSL Certificate Authorites in non-PNG supporting web browsers have either expired or will expire shortly. Since SSL doesn't cleanly handle expired CA entries, users of non-PNG supporting web browsers may be open to a masqurade attack. And to bring things to an end once and for all, 20 years from the filing date of June 20, 1983, US Patent 4,558,302 expires. I suggest that Slashdot mark June 20, 2003 on it's calendar for a party!

Now that they consider LZW profitable, they continue to make their rounds on enforcing their LZW patent ( Patent #4,558,302). But they didn't always consider it profitable enough to actually enforce. They sat silent as CompServe promoted the GIF 87 standard as an open and free graphic file format. Two years later when the open & free format was revised to GIF 89 and GIF 89a, Unisys continued to sit silent. It wasn't until 1993 when GIF had taken on popularity due to it's free nature that Unisys choose to actually take action. If they had taken action back before 1990 instead of 6 years after GIF's original introduction then programmers/users looking for a free file format would not have accepted GIF/LZW and would have looked for an alternative. By remaining blind to the most popular computer image format in BBS history, Unisys ensured an entrenched critical mass of patent infrigement to tax. If Unisys had available to it an even dirtier and non-professional method of making a buck, I'm glad I haven't heard about it.

The League for Programming Freedom has some good information on the GIF Controversy. And, since there is always two sides to every story, Unisys has written their take on the issue. This document explains their stand on requiring licensing from EVERYONE including for what they refered to as "so-called 'freeware.'" They also have a special email address set aside to answer licensing questions. You may wish to email them to find out more on why they refuse to provide a license which is fair to the "so-called 'freeware'" software developer.

Fortantly, this form of Unisys terror will come to an end. Libungif provides a work-around while resulting in files larger than a xpm or bmp containing the same image. The Unisys action also hopefully will help further promote the use of PNG. Most users of web browsers that don't support PNG have much more to worry about than PNGs showing up as a broken image--the public keys for the SSL Certificate Authorites in non-PNG supporting web browsers have either expired or will expire shortly. Since SSL doesn't cleanly handle expired CA entries, users of non-PNG supporting web browsers may be open to a masqurade attack. And to bring things to an end once and for all, 20 years from the filing date of June 20, 1983, US Patent 4,558,302 expires. I suggest that Slashdot mark June 20, 2003 on it's calendar for a party!

1995 statement from Unisys : http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/Gif/uni sys.html .

? Go figure.

Have a look at weather.unisys.com I have been following the nested grid model for over a year and have found it to be reasonable accurate (as weather forcasts go.) I am looking at the rapid update cycle now for short range forecasts.

There's a long history behind this submarine patent debacle. Sperry had the LZW patent, so now Unisys (spit) does. CompuServe waited a long time to warn everyone after they were told this is an issue, but otherwise this is really Welch's fault for publishing that article conveniently forgetting to mention the patent.

Btw, along the topic of math that has been around for "years and years," LZW doesn't become available in the US until Dec 2002. For those that haven't been following the LZW issues, UniSys holds the patent to LZW and silently watched CompuServe declair LZW part of the GIF87, GIF89 and GIF89a open standards. They also waited silently for LZW to become widely used as part of the PostScript standard. After YEARS of neglecting to enforce the patent they decided to then enforce payment requirements to use the GIF, TIFF/LZW, PostScript (and PDF) standards. Their targets have included GNU software contributor Derek B. Noonburg for xpdf and Linux friendly company Corel Corp.