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GIF Slips Away From Unisys; Your Move, IBM
Twenty years ago, Terry Welch's improvement on Lempel-Ziv compression appeared in IEEE Computer magazine. The authors of unix 'compress' and the GIF standard incorporated that algorithm without realizing it was patent-pending. When the submarine patent surfaced ten years later, its new owner Unisys intimidated developers and web authors into moving away from GIFs, inspiring the creation of a better standard, though sadly still a less popular one. Today, July 7, 2004, Unisys's last LZW patent (in Canada) expires, leaving GIF once again free... almost. See, there's the small matter of IBM's patent, granted on the same algorithm, which is valid for another two years. That still has a chilling effect on GIF development, though the consensus seems to be that IBM would lose any court action it tried to bring. So how about it, IBM? You've got nothing to lose! Want to make a lot of geeks happy and release that final patent into the public domain?
In the 1980's I'm pretty sure that IBM would fight tooth and nail for any patent infringement. But those were the days when IBM was the 800 pound gorilla and what Microsoft wanted to be (and eventually became).
Nowadays IBM is on the rebound, and wants to put forth a kinder and gentler face. In as such, along with the almost impossible task of enforcing a practically public domain standard, it would be politically correct for them to just look the other way on GIFs.
IBM does enforce its patents on any company they think can pay. The did it to my company and to other companies that I know of.
Stop spreading the lie that IBM only "defends" itself using patents.
A while ago a told a colleague that PNG was the best format for loss-less graphics (not photos) and we should use PNG for an application.
After all that the textbook line.
But then he sent me a JPEG with the quality turn to max and it looked perfect and was way smaller than PNG. Do the textbooks have it all wrong?
I think the previous poster meant that IE lacks support for PNG-24's 8 bit alpha.
See, PNG supports 256 levels of transparency. Gradients. Oh, the joy of no jagged edges.
The problem is, yes, a 24 bit PNG with 8 bits of alpha can get rather large, especially when they are used for what they weren't intended for; replacing JPGs.
Open up this link in anything but IE (I tested it with Mozilla and Opera) to see some 8-bit alpha. And a cool little demo to boot.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
So people know what an "alpha-transparency is" -- it's this very beautiful flower... which is also on this page, unless you're using IE, in which case it's just blank. Some examples are also available here. Basically it's just a much nicer version of GIF's transparency.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Actually, I think the reason most people think pngs produce larger filesize images is that most professional graphics bods use photoshop, which, despite being a fantastic bit of software, is shit at optimising pngs.
The GIMP does a much better job of it.
Warning: May contain nuts
In the JPEG standard, there are two possible compression modes for the DCT coefficients, Huffman and Arithmetic encoding. The arithmetic coding is about 10% smaller, far faster to compute, but is unfortunately proscribed by the IBM patent.
If IBM would release this patent, we could change some #defines in the JPEG code and get 10% smaller pictures with no change in quality.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
From the GNU website...
"We were able to search the patent databases of the USA, Canada, Japan, and the European Union. The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europe it expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan patent expired on 20 June 2004 and in Canada until 7 July 2004. "
UnixWare's compress program (for *.Z files) is
infringing on this patent.
OK.. I have been watching the debate for several years (it's like watching the grass grow). Here's where things are:
There are several arguments for GIF being pronounced with a HARD G:
1) "G" stands for Graphical. Graphical has a hard G.
2) The majority of people pronounce it that way.
3) Most words that start with G have a hard G.
The main case for Soft G is that the designers of the file format specifically stated in their specification document that it's a soft G.
Item 1 has been shot down as follows: Yes, G stands for graphical (*as specified by the designers of the file format*). Three problems with that:
a) The technical pronounciation of Graphical is gha-raf-i-cal. So it's not the same phonetical sound as hard G. You would need to then pronounce it Gh-IF, NOT hard G "GIF".
b) What something stands for has nothing to do with how an acronym is pronounced. Modem, for example, stands for modulation/demodulation. Is it pronounced "mah-deem"? Laser would be pronounced as if it rhymes with brassiere... etc. The fact that g stands for graphical has nothing to do with the pronounciation of the acronym.
c) If you are referring to the word "graphical" as the basis for the argument, then you are basing your argument on the the words picked by the designers, and used in the specification. And in that specification, the designers said that it's pronounced JIFF like the peanut butter. So for consistency, if you go back to the specification to determine what it stands for, then you must live by their specified pronounciation.
Item 2 has been shot down because the majority doesn't rule on matters of punctuation. (pronounciation?)
Item 3 has been shot down because there is no rule. There are MANY words that have a soft G pronounciation. People have even argued that GIF is part of Gift, and so they should sound the same. (Gin (soft g) and gink (hard g) are examples that shoot down that logic.)
So we go back to the specification... no one seems to be able to logically shoot this down. The folks who invented the file format decided what it would be called, and how to pronounce it. If you want to invent your own file format, you can pronounce it any way you want. You can even pick a symbol, and then be referred to as "The file format formerly known as Prince". But as inventor, it's your call.
I want to say this in a *gentle* way... the *gist* of my message is that most GIF pronounciation arguments amount to *gibberish*, when you consider the *general* logic behind them. I'll let the *genie* out of the bottle here: Have a *gin* and tonic, and cool your *genitals*. You have to go back to the *genesis* of the file format, at the *germination* of the idea, when they first *generated* the specification. to determine the correct pronounciation. It is soft G, like JIFF.
(it's really fun to read the posts where people write.. "Those who pronounce GIF as JIF..." and correctly read that aloud ("Those who pronounce JIF as JIF"))
OK.. let this be the definitive guide to pronouncing GIF. You can pronounce it any way you want, but if you are one who insists on being "correct", get used to saying JIF. And I haven't read a logical, solid argument YET for pronouncing it with a hard G. Right now, Soft G is winning the debate, and it's not even close!
I'm not sure that's true, but IANAL. The current status of the patent probably has little to do with the status of the patent at the time of infringement.
It would probably reduce the amount of damages but would still achieve the primary purpose of making SCO burn through cash. We all know [or at lwast strongly suspect] that the total damages to IBM by SCO will far exceed the value of SCO...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Because when you're working on a corporate project that costs money, it's very difficult to put a business case forward for something which will only be of benefit to a very small number of visitors. Most clients would rather pay for something that directly benefits the browsing experience of the other 95%."
So what's the business case for Java applets and Macromedia shockwave and Flash? Do we just hand-wave the lack of installed compatibility when we're talking about a buzzword?
"25% of our customers will see a blank screen instead of our website. Screw 'em!"