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JPEG Patent Could Impact The Gimp

Posted by timothy on from the notacon-falls-silent dept.

SeanAhern writes "A number of years ago, Forgent acquired a patent on some of the algorithms required for JPEG compression and decompression, and recently sued 31 big-name IHVs and ISVs. A Newsforge article gets into some of the details and asks whether open source tools like the Gimp could be liable as well. To add fuel to the fire, the Joint Photographic Experts Group's committee thinks that some of the patent may be invalid. The p2pnet.net story mentions that the FTC has some skepticism as well. We originally talked about this on Slashdot back in the summer of 2002."

3 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. In other news... by KingOfBLASH · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forgent receives financing deal from Baystar in order to pursue IP claims.

    1. Re:In other news... by metlin · · Score: 5, Funny

      And in related news, Darth McBride steps down from SCO to join Forgent as their new CEO.

      Following this, Forgent has issued licensing claims to Adobe, Pixar, Kodak and a few other companies.

      "Share a moment, share a life, for just $699!" is the new tagline for the company.

  2. Re:This is a very bad trend by pewterfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    WTF?! What revenues? The developers are getting donations and the like for the contributions they are making by working for free. This is plain ridiculous, people are putting in their free time to help develop software that will benefit everyone, and giving it away for free.

    So yeah, the GIMP should donate a percentage of their revenues. 15% of 0 is still 0 :)

    --
    :D > £/$