FLIF: Free Lossless Image Format

nickweller sends a link to an informational post about FLIF, the Free, Lossless Image Format. It claims to outperform PNG, lossless WebP, and other popular formats on any kind of image. "On photographs, PNG performs poorly while WebP, BPG and JPEG 2000 compress well (see plot on the left). On medical images, PNG and WebP perform relatively poorly while BPG and JPEG 2000 work well (see middle plot). On geographical maps, BPG and JPEG 2000 perform (extremely) poorly while while PNG and WebP work well (see plot on the right). In each of these three examples, FLIF performs well — even better than any of the others." FLIF uses progressive decoding to provide fully-formed lossy images from partial downloads in bandwidth-constrained situations. Best of all, FLIF is free software, released under the GNU GPLv3.

Comments

GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.

Sometimes zealots get in their own way...

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, doesn't this require that all software that supports the format needs to be released as GPLv3 as well?

Who's bright idea was that?

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Etcetera]

Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.

Sometimes zealots get in their own way...

Yeah, I was just about to say this. Why in God's name would one put a library like this in v3? I suppose I should be happy they made a library at all instead of just "creating an app", but this will be nothing more than a science project.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Josh Coalson]

Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.

Not necessarily. If the format is free and well-defined, there can be other implementations. This happened with FLAC, which started out LGPL.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

Yeah, doesn't this require that all software that supports the format needs to be released as GPLv3 as well?

Who's bright idea was that?

The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[volkerdi]

FLIF will never kill PNG anyway as long as it keeps linking to libpng.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[thevirtualcat]

That was my initial thought too, but unless I'm mistaken, the GPLv3 just covers the reference implementation.

The fact that the format itself is completely patent and royalty free means that anyone can implement their own version under whatever license they choose. They just can't use the reference implementation.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[morcego]

Yeah, doesn't this require that all software that supports the format needs to be released as GPLv3 as well?

Who's bright idea was that?

The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.

Isn't that exactly the kind of thing that free software was supposed to avoid? Having to reinvent the wheel because some nitwit had it locked on copyright?

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Trailer Trash]

Note that in the case of Vorbis Stallman actually endorsed the BSD license because he understood that there was no other path to wider adoption. FLIF is the same - it'll remain nothing but a little-known oddity unless they decide to use a BSD license that will allow Microsoft, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari to use the code.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

There are lots of libraries under GPL. Poppler is for example dual licensed under both GPLv2 and GPLv3, since it's based on xpdf and inherits its license. A more liberate license would probably be more optimal for this kind of library but using proper GPL is not unheard of. Someone can of course create their own independent implementation if they want to.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

Not at all. The goal of free software is that users should have freedom.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, so it was just announced and it already needs to be re-engineered independently or the implementation forked and re-released to be usable for most.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

A fork cannot change the license.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Kjella]

The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.

And any time the reference implementation changes you have to alter your implementation in a non-copyright infringing way. That is a lot harder than it sounds because any time you get a little bit lazy and copy-paste, literally or practically your implementation is now legally fishy. Creating the clean room implementation and paper trail proving you've actually come up with your code independently is actually a lot worse when there is available source code than when it's not. Did you see how much shit Oracle managed to stir up over a few Java interface definitions and trivial bits of code? No company with a sane legal department is going to touch this with a ten foot pole.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[TheRaven64]

How did Poppler end up GPLv3? xpdf (on which it was based) was GPLv2, with no or-later provision and an explicit statement from the author that he did not want the or-later clause.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[CastrTroy]

The GPL says nothing about users of the software. It only has restrictions as far as how the source must be handled when distributing the software. If you're just using the software, there's nothing in the GPL that has any effect on you. If you make modifications to the source code, and want to distribute those modifications (as compiled binaries or as source code) then you need to start adhering to the GPL. This means it doesn't really apply to most users, because most of them lack the skills necessary to make any modifications to the source code. The best they could do is pay somebody else to make the modifications they need.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Dutch Gun]

The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.

Which, I'm betting, no one will care to do. Even when there is a permissive license, it's still incredibly difficult for a new file format to gain any traction. Think about how many years it took for PNG to take root with decent support in graphics tools and browsers.

If the ultimate goal is to promote this file format, this is not the best way of doing it. Apparently, keeping the software they wrote as FOSS/GPL is more important to the authors than broad adoption. That's fine, but just don't expect the rest of the world to come rushing to adopt this format. Sadly, it's probably going to be ignored, even if it's technically superior to PNG as claimed.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL does not prevent you from learning from the source code to implement a compatible version under a different license.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm missing the part on the website where the format is documented... (Beyond it uses bits of this and bits of that)

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[TheRaven64]

Covering the reference implementation means that no one will even seriously evaluate it. Of the major browsers:

• Internet explorer (and the new one is called) is proprietary, no GPLv3 code linking allowed.
• The WebKit underpinnings of Safari are LGPLv2 (not GPLv3 compatible), so even if Apple (which has a corporate policy not to permit GPLv3 code in the door) wanted to adopt it, they can't.
• Chrome has the same issue with regard to LGPLv2 in WebKit.
• Firefox is triple licensed, and I think one of the licenses may be GPLv3 compatible, but probably not.

If you can't ship a beta of the browser that supports it, then how do you do things like compare things like page loading time, bandwidth usage, and so on? Doing an open source release under a license that says 'you can't use this code, and if you want to implement this spec then you'd better make sure that you didn't look at our code' strikes me as taking the piss.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

Xpdf is dual licensed under both GPLv2 and GPLv3 since some time ago. You can choose either one or both. I assume the author has collected permission from all contributors to do this.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

Users are free because they have access to the source code, have the freedom to learn from it, change it and/or pass it along.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL says nothing about users of the software.

Yes and no. You have to recognize that the GPL was written with the concept that "everyone can code" and hence users WOULD want to distribute their changes. But as time has progressed...

This means it doesn't really apply to most users, because most of them lack the skills necessary to make any modifications to the source code. The best they could do is pay somebody else to make the modifications they need.

Which still produces the same net result: you're not restricted by a license that prevents modification and redistribution or any sort of patching (I remember the case of the skipping software to skip over the "bad" part of DVDs vs whether one could simply buy a copy of a DVD, edit out the "bad" parts, and then sell the DVD + modified DVD (ie, as close an analogy to buying up books, crossing out the parts you don't like, and reselling as one can reasonably get with the medium)--it didn't go over well in the courts). The point, in the end is that the notion of an "end user" is more or less a foreign concept to the GPL. For the GPL it's a graph with cycles, not a tree.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[serviscope_minor]

Note that in the case of Vorbis Stallman actually endorsed the BSD license

It's actually part of their general policy. For implementing things like reference implementations of unencumbered protocols and file formats, they recommend a permissive license to aid adoption:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/li...

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[aitikin]

Not according to Xpdf's About page. For those too lazy to follow the link:

Xpdf is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. In my opinion, the GPL is a convoluted, confusing, ambiguous mess. But it's also pervasive, and I'm sick of arguing. And even if it is confusing, the basic idea is good.

In order to cut down on the confusion a little bit, here are some informal clarifications:

If you are redistributing unmodified copies of Xpdf (or any of the Xpdf tools) in binary form, you need to include all of the documentation: README, man pages (or help files), and COPYING. The README file contains a pointer to a web page with the source code, which satisfies the GPL requirement as far as I am concerned. You are, of course, welcome to distribute the source code as well.
If you are incorporating the Xpdf source code into another program, and you are distributing that program, you'll need to release your program under the GPL, which means you'll have to make the full source available. This also applies if you are making changes to the Xpdf tools.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[morcego]

Not at all. The goal of free software is that users should have freedom.

You haven't read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, have you?

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Kjella]

The GPL does not prevent you from learning from the source code to implement a compatible version under a different license.

No, but "derived from" extends further than implementing the exact same thing with different variable names that you typed up yourself. It's the same for all copyrighted material, you don't need direct quotes to infringe on a book, the exact samples to infringe on a song's melody or using cutouts to infringe on a photograph. It's not a patent, it doesn't get a monopoly on every implementation. But you have to show it's not the same implementation, because that will infringe copyright.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ClickOnThis]

That doesn't require GPL3. GPL2, BSD, MPL... lots of OSS licenses exist with the same abilities for users. Obviously GPL3's purpose must be more than that.

It is. The main difference between the GPL and other licenses is that GPL does not let anyone take away freedoms provided by the GPL. For example, one cannot hide modifications to GPL code, or stop someone from modifying GPL code on which a program depends.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[petermgreen]

The GPL neither permits it nor forbids it. So it then falls back to the question of whether or not your "reimplementation" is legally a "derivative work" of the original implementation.

AIUI (i am not a lawyer) if you read some code and then write very similar code that can be considered to be "copying" even if you didn't write it out word for word. If you try and reimplement a complex format you are very likely to end up writing very similar code to the original imlementation simply because there is only one sane way to imlement bits of it. So if you don't "cleanroom" (i.e. forbid the people doing the reimplementation from reading the original source) you will likely have an uphill battle trying to demonstrate that your code really is an independent implementation (and hence not covered by the license of the original implementation) rather than a derivative work (and hence covered by the license of the original implementation).

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[macs4all]

Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place.

Sometimes zealots get in their own way...

You beat me to it. I was coming here to post exactly that.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[n1ywb]

LGPL versions 2 and 3 are both extant and widely used. Ditto the AGPL.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

It looks like the Xpdf web page is inconsistent. I got this from the README:

License & Distribution

Xpdf is licensed under the GNU General Pulbic License (GPL), version 2
or 3. This means that you can distribute derivatives of Xpdf under
any of the following:
- GPL v2 only
- GPL v3 only
- GPL v2 or v3

The Xpdf source package includes the text of both GPL versions:
COPYING for GPL v2, COPYING3 for GPL v3.

Please note that Xpdf is NOT licensed under "any later version" of the
GPL, as I have no idea what those versions will look like.

If you are redistributing unmodified copies of Xpdf (or any of the
Xpdf tools) in binary form, you need to include all of the
documentation: README, man pages (or help files), COPYING, and
COPYING3.

If you want to incorporate the Xpdf source code into another program
(or create a modified version of Xpdf), and you are distributing that
program, you have two options: release your program under the GPL (v2
and/or v3), or purchase a commercial Xpdf source license.

If you're interested in commercial licensing, please see the Glyph &
Cog web site:

http://www.glyphandcog.com/

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[macs4all]

Users are free because they have access to the source code, have the freedom to learn from it, change it and/or pass it along.

You mean the freedom to pay someone else to do it, as was suggested above in this Post . Sounds like a lot of Proprietary packages to me.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Bengie]

But it does prevent you from using any of the original GPL code. Some of your code so happens to look similar? Prove you didn't use GPL or get sued! Can't prove it?

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ClickOnThis]

Covering the reference implementation means that no one will even seriously evaluate it. Of the major browsers:

• Internet explorer (and the new one is called) is proprietary, no GPLv3 code linking allowed.
• The WebKit underpinnings of Safari are LGPLv2 (not GPLv3 compatible), so even if Apple (which has a corporate policy not to permit GPLv3 code in the door) wanted to adopt it, they can't.
• Chrome has the same issue with regard to LGPLv2 in WebKit.
• Firefox is triple licensed, and I think one of the licenses may be GPLv3 compatible, but probably not.

All of this is irrelevant once someone releases a non-GPL library that supports the format. And internal evaluations can be done with the GPL implementation, while an adopter waits for (or develops independently) a non-GPL implementation.

If you can't ship a beta of the browser that supports it, then how do you do things like compare things like page loading time, bandwidth usage, and so on? Doing an open source release under a license that says 'you can't use this code, and if you want to implement this spec then you'd better make sure that you didn't look at our code' strikes me as taking the piss.

Nothing is stopping you from looking at the GPL code to see how it works, and then writing your own implementation. You just can't copy-paste the code verbatim.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[jonnythan]

You use the reference implementation internally for initial testing, and if you like it you code your own to release in your browser. I expect the Chrome and Firefox guys wouldn't have too much trouble coding their own image decoder module. Or someone can write up their own and release it GPLv2 or BSD or whatever.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

It's too simplistic to think of users and developers as separate entities and to say that the GPL is anti any of those is just ridiculous. Even users without a desire to write programs can have an interest in the source code. Even though they may not have the required skill and knowledge to modify the software themselves they may contract that job to someone that can. This is actually quite common, a lot of IT consulting companies work with free and open source software. Individual people may be fore or against licensing software under the GPL, that's fine. But all users no matter how much of a programmer they are can benefit from GPL'd software and there are plenty of examples of both types of users that do so.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

Users that lack the ability to change the software themselves can of course ask someone else to do it for them, either for free or for compensation. This is not at all the case with proprietary software. The vendor may of course choose to change the software for you but you have no such guarantees. Microsoft is not going to make fundamental changes to Windows or most of their other products if you ask them. With free software you are not locked in to the original vendor, you can ask anyone else to do changes for you.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

I actually have read it. It's a fine book.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ClickOnThis]

Great, so it was just announced and it already needs to be re-engineered independently

You're getting it for free, with conditions. Conditions that you (or someone else) can work around. If you don't like the conditions, go create your own format.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Freedom is a nice thing, and the GPL gives it to you, provided you don't prevent others from enjoying the same freedom you get from the GPL.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

Users never look at the source code, only developers do, and GPL is anti-developer.

How is it anti-developer? You have 100% access to the source code, a developer's dream. If you are thinking it is anti-developer, because you can't take someone else's work, slap your name on it, sell it, and sue others not to do the same, then you are delusional.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Nothing is stopping you from looking at the GPL code to see how it works, and then writing your own implementation.

Well, copyright law.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ClickOnThis]

Nothing is stopping you from looking at the GPL code to see how it works, and then writing your own implementation.

Well, copyright law.

Copyright law covers the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[F.Ultra]

Or the developer behind it hopes to sell a proprietary license to those who want's it. It appears that it's a single developer so he can relicense the whole codebase whenever he chooses.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

You must understand that the GPL does for share your definition of freedom. Being able to further restrict the ones you pass the software on to is not freedom, it's tyranny.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[gstoddart]

Do you know the value of a "free" platform nobody can integrate into their own product without their product becoming GPL, and whose reference implementation can't be used?

Not a damned thing.

So people can use it, but they need to write their own. They can't reference the reference implementation without tainting their own.

So, what exactly is the incentive to give a damn about the format?

Because I'm reading this as "look at our super awesome new format ... want a lick? Psyche!".

So, something already GPLd will integrate this. And pretty much everyone else will wonder what they can do with it.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[jbengt]

If you try and reimplement a complex format you are very likely to end up writing very similar code to the original imlementation simply because there is only one sane way to imlement bits of it.

Then that block of code would be functional, rather than creative, and it wouldn't be covered by copyright (if the courts agree with you, assuming it comes to that)
IANAL, YMMV

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL2 or even the BSD license already accomplished that, which is I think the distinction that people are trying to make.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[parkinglot777]

Regarding to their site -- http://www.gnu.org/licenses/qu... A quick summary is under "Neutralizing Laws That Prohibit Free Software — But Not Forbidding DRM"

As usual, the GNU GPL does not restrict what people do in software; it just stops them from restricting others.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[tepples]

A codec incorporates not only coding techniques but what a 0 represents in each circumstance and what a 1 represents. By the logic of the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Oracle v. Google, the particular senses for bitstream elements chosen in FLIF would be the expression of the general idea of a lossless still image codec incorporating particular techniques. The question of whether copying these senses is fair use has been remanded to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[MenThal]

Pulbic?!? That's a variant of GPL I am not familiar with... Pubic on the other hand...

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yeah, I know that. Reading the documentation of the idea and creating a codec is fine. Reading the code and creating new code could, if the code is similar enough, be copyright infringement.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[tlhIngan]

The reference implementation is under GPLv3. Everyone is of course still free to create their own implementation and license it under whichever license they want.

At which point, as a developer, I'll go "So where's the demand?"

This is a new "supposedly better" file format. But no one supports it yet, so you want me to waste my time creating an implementation for it?

Effectively, a chicken and egg situation - no one wants to implement it if they don't have to because the license isn't usable and no one's using it, and if no one implements it, no one uses it.

It's why reference implementations are usually in a very permissive license to at least pick up adoption - no one might be using it yet, but if it's BSD, I can go and add support for it trivially in my program. And when people do use it, all these programs are magically compatible because it was cheap to add support for it.

But as it is, simply telling me "implement it yourself" is interpreted more as a "go f*** yourself". I have better things to work on in my program - bugs, features, and stuff people actually need and use. I'm not going to waste time implementing something that's not out there yet. (And if I wait long enough, there might be a more suitably-licensed version when demand requires it).

Right now, the ball is in their court. Either they can convince content creators to use their tools to make content available (which if the tools don't integrate with their workflow, won't happen), or prove their format is so vastly superior it's worth the effort. Because unless there is demand, no one will support it. (And content creators will probably see that no one supports it and wonder why they should make special effort). Chicken and egg.

Right now, unless someone does it out of generousity, it's dead.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Caesar Tjalbo]

GPL is anti-developer

Nope. I'm a developer and quite often think the GPL is the best solution. It helps if you're a developer and user of the program.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[PvtVoid]

You must understand that the GPL does for share your definition of freedom. Being able to further restrict the ones you pass the software on to is not freedom, it's tyranny.

Here's my vote for Slashdot to include a new mod category: "-1 uses the word 'tyranny'".

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL says nothing about users of the software.

Wrong. The GPL says:

This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program.

This is essential - and something notably missing from much proprietary software. (Take a look through the license agreement for Word or Photoshop sometime.) The GNU project has a list of four freedoms that, by their definition, free software must permit, of which the first is:

The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

Again, this is a freedom exercised by the *users* of the software.

Of the remaining items on the list, two of them involve tinkering with the source code, which is difficult if you're not a programmer. But, short of giving people free programming lessons, there's nothing more you can do in the license agreement to protect this freedom than to ensure that they can ask anyone (not just the author, or authorised redistributors) for help with it. And that's not a trivial thing: it ensures that, ultimately, the user is not dependent on the original author, which fundamentally changes the power dynamic between them.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Citizen of Earth]

You're getting it for free, with conditions. Conditions that you (or someone else) can work around. If you don't like the conditions, go create your own format.

In this case, the conditions mean that this format is DOA, so we can safely ignore it and get on with our lives.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

Anytime anyone wants to bring in a new library, the first question is what license is it under. GPL3 means toss it, even for internal projects. There is no GPL3 code in anything I've touched because it's a "legal" virus.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[aix tom]

Of course there seem to be two kind of "developers".

Type one (you and me it seems) are people who stumble over "Dang, I (or my employee) has a problem that technology and software could solve. Let's solve that problem" situations. For those people (us) the GPL is great. You can pull together a solution that fixes your problem, and makes your company more productive. Basically by "directly making money" with the software you write.

Then there seem to be the "I have this great idea. People should pay me, because I had this great idea" developers. For those the GPL is basically the end of their business model.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[UnknownSoldier]

> and GPL is anti-developer

That's complete nonsense.

GPL prevents other developers from hijacking the freedom to lock everyone OUT

The goal is FREEDOM for FOR ALL.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Gr8Apes]

Freedom is a nice thing, and the GPL gives it to you, provided you don't prevent others from enjoying the same freedom you get from the GPL.

The GPL (v3) does not give you freedom. You cannot take GPL v3 code and use it to build something, and keep your code private. You cannot have trade secrets with GPL3. You cannot even use GPLv2 software with GPLv3. There's a reason less than 12% of GPL licensed software is GPLv3. No rational person wants that legal virus.

True freedom is provided under MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses, for example, where you can do anything with the code. Lesser freedoms are given by LGPL code, which can legally be used in many situations.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ColdWetDog]

How many good christian family members have you lost to the GPL?

I'm pastafarian, you insensitive clod.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

No that is the closed myth about open source. That is is viral and infects your software. Unless you are making a modification of the reference encoder your work is not a derivative work, merely distributed alongside. It's the same reason you don't need to worry about what license tar is distributed under when you write a shell script.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[gbjbaanb]

Well, this means no users will be using the software because Microsoft will not be able to bundle it in Windows as a native format (not without releasing the source code of Windows).

This is the part where the GPL becomes problematic - while I think releasing the software that relates to the open source project is perfectly agreeable, making it apply to every other bit of software its linked to is not.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

Even then it's only a problem coupled with a great deal of paranoia and misinformation about the "viral" nature of the GPL.

Your shell script does not become GPL'd by virtual of calling a GPL'd binary even though they combine in memory. Nothing else becomes GPL'd by using something which was distributed under the GPL via it's intended interface either.

You actually have to modify the GPL'd code or incorporate it into your source AND distribute it before the GPL kicks in. The LGPL was created to spell this out in some cases but that doesn't mean the LGPL was actually needed in the first place, just that the LGPL makes it more explicit.

There is a lot of paranoia on this issue. Another example is a number of platforms being used on the web server side and fear of using GPL'd code. Program output != program distribution. The GPL does not apply to server side code used to product output consumed by clients. There are number of projects making a profit selling dual licensing to people who don't need it based on this.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[gbjbaanb]

Alas, that works fine with real Open software - developers can take the source, build it and bundle it into their product.

The GPL prevents this - nobody disagrees that you shouldn't take the software and pretend you made it, but as the GPL makes your software have to be GPL too, it makes using the software impossible.

If the GPL only applied to the open software and made no claims whatsoever about the software that used it, people would be releasing GPL licenced stuff all the time. As it is, BSD or similar licences are the ones to use if you want your software to become standard. I'm sure a middle ground of licencing could be produced that said proprietary software could use open source and kept the proprietary stuff closed while still mandating openness and upstream releases of changes to the open software.

Nobody thinks "people should pay me because" concept is real, most open source software is in the form of libraries (like this image format) which should be used within the developers own project that they should be able to sell, because they made it.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[macs4all]

Users that lack the ability to change the software themselves can of course ask someone else to do it for them, either for free or for compensation. This is not at all the case with proprietary software. The vendor may of course choose to change the software for you but you have no such guarantees. Microsoft is not going to make fundamental changes to Windows or most of their other products if you ask them. With free software you are not locked in to the original vendor, you can ask anyone else to do changes for you.

Really? I never would have guessed that! [/sarcasm]

My point was, and I'm pretty sure you knew what I meant, that for MOST people (i.e., those who can't code), Open Source software might as well be Closed Source, for all the good it does them to have the Source available.

Oh, and I know you won't believe this; but a majority of that majority of MOST people really DON'T know where they would even START to look for someone who could code, seriously.

I understand (and appreciate and even applaud) the PROMISE of Open Source (afterall, where would OS X be without its included F/OSS Projects?); but for most people it really IS just a(n Unrealizable) Promise.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[gbjbaanb]

What a waste of effort. Write it once, release it as open source, let everyone else use it.

Everybody is then happy, the world becomes a bit better.

these excuses for the GPL just show how redundant it is, we do need a licence that says an open source library can be used in closed source software while still mandating changes and fixes to the library must be released as open source.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Fnord666]

If you're just using the software, there's nothing in the GPL that has any effect on you.

So if you build a library from source, then link the binary into your application, are you bound to release your source or not?
From xpdf's license:

If you want to incorporate the Xpdf source code into another program (or create a modified version of Xpdf), and you are distributing that program, you have two options: release your program under the GPL (v2 and/or v3), or purchase a commercial Xpdf source license.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[thegarbz]

You're getting it for free, with conditions. Conditions that you (or someone else) can work around. If you don't like the conditions, go create your own format.

One of those conditions specifically reduces what you're getting. Specifically you can't implement the spec in the same way in the same language. I think some people would have been happier if they simply released a full spec and not any reference implementation at all.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[kthreadd]

If you pass on that binary to someone else then you will have to offer him or her the source code to the full application. If you never distribute the binary then you don't have to release anything.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ClickOnThis]

we do need a licence that says an open source library can be used in closed source software while still mandating changes and fixes to the library must be released as open source.

That exists. It's called the LGPL.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[jthill]

It's a hell of a lot easier to make minor fixups/additions to code than the frightened are willing to credit.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Anonymous Coward]

This should not be rated -1.

I don't find this right, but they guy is stating a reality of the market. They do that.

Personally, I believe they don't understand how F/OSS works, but that's what happens.

I've heard of a company which cannot have any of its products "contaminated" with GPL code while at the same time it uses 7-zip for non-development activities.

Red Hat makes a lot of money while dealing with the GPL all the time...

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shutdown -p now]

The ones who need this format are the users. But they won't actually get it because none of the mainstream browsers will use a GPLv3 library. And until at least one popular browser has it, others don't really have any incentive to implement it.

So, in effect, the project is stillborn, entirely due to the licensing decision of the authors. Which is exactly the point.

If that's a victory for freedom, then, I suppose... yay?

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[cas2000]

Developers can have multiple goals at the same time. Some developers have the goals of both promoting a new standard and promoting Free Software (as defined by GNU).

Some developers don't want parasites like Apple or Microsoft or some groovy uber-cool startup getting the benefit of their work without an obligation to contribute back.

The GPL satisfies those goals. GPLv3 closes some loopholes in v2 that can be exploited by the unscrupulous to subvert the intent of the GPL.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[hparker]

Why all the GPL hate speech? Any ol' proprietary program can use this free FLIF code by keeping their proprietary code as a separate executable that communicates to the FLIF codec through an open interface. Note that many applications today consist of multiple processes that communicate with each other.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[bhlowe]

Uh, no. Just see if Photoshop can natively import or export using GPL codecs. For Photoshop to use it would require hoops the size of Saturn's rings.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[jrumney]

It's not really the same. FLIF is one of many image compression formats free of patents and other IP issues. Vorbis was up against MP3, WMA and AAC.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Pseudonym]

There is no GPL3 code in anything I've touched [...]

Good. You shouldn't be profiteering off other peoples' hard work if they don't want you to.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[ultranova]

Nobody thinks "people should pay me because" concept is real, most open source software is in the form of libraries (like this image format) which should be used within the developers own project that they should be able to sell, because they made it.

You can sell a program which uses GPL'd code as a building block. You just can't stop anyone else from making yet another program that uses your code as a building block, just like you used the GPL'd code. Obviously this sucks if you want to merely take and never give, but that's not a bug, it's a feature.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Zontar The Mindless]

You: The greatest good is that which provides me with the most benefit; whether it benefits anyone else is not of any consequence whatsoever.

GPL: The greatest good is that which provides the most people with the most benefit overall; I acknowledge that what benefits me at the expense of others does not contribute to attaining that goal.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[inflex]

Just wanted to jump on the bandwagon and agree with your view on this matter. It's already hard enough to get your foot in the door for establishing a presence, and time/effort is a rare commodity such that people will discard an option if it looks like it's going to be more work on top of simply learning how to integrate it in to their project.

Likely someone will end up writing a BSD-modified/Apache/MIT licenced implementation of this and *maybe* from that the standard might have more success in gaining a foothold (assuming there isn't cloud of subtly-broken implementations to poison the well), the downside for the original-standard though will be then that the majority of developers will be following someone else's developments.

All of my own FOSS projects have been set free in the world as BSD-modified.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[inflex]

The GPLv3 is the best thing for free software, because it forces everything to be free. The rest will die a slow death due to feature and user attrition.

Like that time Windows and OS X used to roam the earth.

I greatly appreciate the open source development world, writing, funding and using it every day, but it will inevitably live in the shadows of the commercial world from a consumer perspective for reasons that have nothing to do with the source code or licence.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[hparker]

Heard of Photoshop plugins? Normal mortals can and do write GPL plugins for Photoshop, including many plugins for importing and exporting different file formats. See for example, http://telegraphics.com.au/sw/ .

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[nickweller]

@Anonymous Coward: "Using GPLv3 will all but ensure no corporate/enterprise support, thus leaving the older, less useful formats in place. Sometimes zealots get in their own way..."

Can GPL licenced software be used in corporate environments?

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[camperdave]

User freedom is what PirateBay is all about. Developer freedom is what GPL is about.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Shirley Marquez]

Yes, you are. The standard is open with no restrictions or royalties. The reference implementation is licensed under the GPLv3 and must be used under the rules required by that license, but independent implementations of the standard may be licensed in any way you like.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Krigl]

So I am free to be left with GIF/JPG/PNG until about 2040? Swell.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

"If you link to GPL code, then your code must as well be GPL."

That actually depends on a lot of things. This is only actually true if your work is a derivative work and linking a library does not automatically make this true 100% of the time or even 20% of the time. Ultimately a court makes that call but generally it's only true if your work and the library essentially have the same function such as a gui using the lib from a cli utility to make a graphical equivalent. An 200k line x86 emulator that links a 2k line unmodified zlib library to add the bonus of being able to read compressed images would not be a derivative and would only need a link back to the original lib.

Where people have issues is when the are deliberately trying to "get around" the GPL by say making a compression tool with some features lacking in gzip and only linking its libraries to try to separate out own code. Obviously this is a derivative and someone is trying to steal from the original authors, profiting from their work without paying them for it.

As I said:

"You actually have to modify the GPL'd code or incorporate it into your source AND distribute it before the GPL kicks in. The LGPL was created to spell this out in some cases but that doesn't mean the LGPL was actually needed in the first place, just that the LGPL makes it more explicit."

You might find speculation to the contrary but you won't find a court ruling on any piece of GPL'd code counter to what I've said here.

"Of course, if you're only using this code internally, that is just a technicality, but linking to a GPL library means you potentially have a lot of work on your hands if you ever decide to commercialize your internal code."

If you are using code internally the terms of the GPL don't matter. The mere use of software does not require a license as copyright law does not grant the right to restrict usage. And the GPL allows commercial distribution. It simply requires you make the source available (of your modifications) along with the sale and with GPL v3 all the patent rights required for the next person in line to do the same.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Windows can in fact bundle binary blobs if it so wishes. As long as the source is also available as well. And no the binary blob does not need to have the source with it, it just has to be available, like on a separate DVD like many linux distros do. Or even on a website where it can be downloaded from.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

No they don't because they don't pass on the patent rights required to protect GPL freedoms or the means required to actually utilize the source on a DRM locked platform.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

"This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program."

Actually note it aafirms this right. It does not grant it. Copyright law does not grant control over the use of software only distribution.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Kavonte]

This is only actually true if your work is a derivative work and linking a library does not automatically make this true 100% of the time

It truly seems as if the only people who are pro-GPL are people who haven't read the GPL.

GPL 2.0 section 2 part B:

You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

GPL 3.0 section 5 part C:

You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged.

Now you are correct in that merely using a library doesn't make a project a derivative work of the library, but the problem is that the authors of the GPL don't see it that way. ...or perhaps they do, but they're not willing to admit to it, because admitting to that would defeat the entire purpose of the GPL, as its purpose is to leverage existing open-source code to force other developers to release open-source code.

So while it may be OK legally to use that library in closed-source software, no one is going to do so as they don't want to be sued by authors who think otherwise, and especially if the FSF were to become involved, that lawsuit could prove to be quite costly. ...and then there's the whole moral issue of the fact that, by using the GPL, the authors have declared that they do not want the code to be used in closed-source software regardless of whether it is legal to do so or not. So no developer who cares about authors rights is going to utilize the library in their closed-source software regardless of whether the law says that they can do so.

If the authors of the image library wish for it to be included in closed-source software, they should choose a license that doesn't explicitly state that they want any software that uses the library to also be licensed under the GPL 3.0.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

"So while it may be OK legally to use that library in closed-source software, no one is going to do so as they don't want to be sued by authors who think otherwise, and especially if the FSF were to become involved, that lawsuit could prove to be quite costly."

As of yet these expensive lawsuits don't exist. Courts and not GPL authors decide what is a derivative work as that is a term from copyright and case law.

"admitting to that would defeat the entire purpose of the GPL, as its purpose is to leverage existing open-source code to force other developers to release open-source code."

Its purpose is to allow developers who believe in an open software ecosystem to provide source code to others who believe in the same. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to use the code. How can you believe in the far more controlling and forceful terms of closed source models that even include EULAs to try to extend controls to usage which isn't even part of the rights granted by copyright and not support the simple "pass it n in the spirit it was given" philosophy of the GPL?

The LGPL was even created to allow making a clearer delineation so people who aren't like-minded can enjoy benefits at the risk of them exploiting the technicality to close things that really are just derivatives.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Kavonte]

You're a philosophical zombie, aren't you?

I've had a theory for some time that a lot of people lack genuine intelligence, but instead simply fake intelligence much like those automatic content generators for link farms generate informative text -- they just randomly piece together related information and, if the information is stitched together well enough, you can end up reading a paragraph before realizing that what you're reading, while it has a lot of words, isn't actually saying anything. Obviously to avoid detection, these philosophical zombies would have to employ a rather effective algorithm for faking intelligence, so exactly how to recognize them has been something I've been trying to figure out for a long time.

Your post strikes me as a possible candidate for a text generated by a philosophical zombie. While it does contain seemingly intelligent arguments, those arguments fail to maintain a cohesiveness in what argument they are attempting to promote. In particular, they seem to entirely miss the argument I was attempting to make, much like how a chat bot misses the substance of anything you say to it but instead merely picks up on keywords which it wishes to respond to because it knows how to talk about those things.

So people aren't being sued over the use of GPL code? I'll give you that. However, I fail to see how it's relevant. Perhaps lawsuits are rare because people wish to abide by the terms of the GPL even if they aren't legally enforceable. Perhaps lawsuits are rare because people who write GPL code often don't have the money to sue. Perhaps lawsuits are rare because it is difficult to tell what source code was used by looking at a closed-source binary which the author of the open-source code may not even know exists. Whatever the reason, the lack of lawsuits says nothing about what the GPL actually says, and the lack of lawsuits definitely doesn't imply that it is acceptable to violate the terms of the GPL. So exactly why you decided to mention this, I have no idea, other than that perhaps you are a chat bot which is programmed to respond to any negative comments about the GPL with responses that you've seen other use in response to negative comments about the GPL.

"Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to use the code." I'll give you that one too. Indeed, it's kind of central to my argument that no one is going to use this image library. If someone were holding a gun to their head, they'd have no choice but to use it and as a result release their projects under the GPL license. However, I wasn't saying that they were being forced to do this. I was saying that they're not going to do this, as they're not going to use this image library. So again, I have no clue why you think this argument is relevant, other than that you're a chat bot which is programmed to respond to any negative comments about the GPL with responses that you've seen other use in response to negative comments about the GPL.

"How can you believe in the far more controlling and forceful terms of closed source models that even include EULAs to try to extend controls to usage which isn't even part of the rights granted by copyright" ... Well, given that I never said that, perhaps this is a comment that your chat-bot-like nature picked up from someone else you've conversed with in the past. I dunno.

Anyway, I've clearly reached the limit of my ability to participate in internet discussions in any constructive manner, so I'm going to delete this account (or at least change the password to some random shit if I can't delete the account) in order to discourage myself from wasting any more time in internet discussions, at least until next month when I succumb to my addiction and create a new account.

Re: GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[shaitand]

"I've had a theory for some time that a lot of people lack genuine intelligence, but instead simply fake intelligence much like those automatic content generators for link farms generate informative text -- they just randomly piece together related information and, if the information is stitched together well enough, you can end up reading a paragraph before realizing that what you're reading, while it has a lot of words, isn't actually saying anything. Obviously to avoid detection, these philosophical zombies would have to employ a rather effective algorithm for faking intelligence, so exactly how to recognize them has been something I've been trying to figure out for a long time."

You certainly seem to do a good of mimicking what you describe. This paragraph while describing a "philosophical zombie" fails to make any point whatsoever and has no relevance to our discussion. Your previous post lead with a back-handed insult as well. Are all your arguments so poor that you feel the need to lead with baseless slander?

My argument on the other hand is clearly stated in the first line of the original post you responded to:

"Even then it's [gpl'd code + getting paid] only a problem coupled with a great deal of paranoia and misinformation about the "viral" nature of the GPL."

"So people aren't being sued over the use of GPL code? I'll give you that."

Failing to utilize billions of dollars worth of GPL'd code in a legitimate and compliant way when "you are correct in that merely using a library doesn't make a project a derivative work of the library" because of fear of lawsuits that never happen certainly sounds paranoid to me.

"the lack of lawsuits definitely doesn't imply that it is acceptable to violate the terms of the GPL"

Nobody is talking about violating the GPL. You yourself, as I just quoted, admit the usage scenarios I've described are not GPL violations.

""Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to use the code." I'll give you that one too. Indeed, it's kind of central to my argument that no one is going to use this image library."

Interesting since this is the first mention of this particular image library you've made. My argument is that almost all uses of an image library such as this are not derivatives, do not violate the GPL, and that nobody feels they do strongly enough to bring lawsuits. Therefore failing to use it for fear of the viral nature of the GPL is baseless paranoia not sound legal advice. You have ceded every point required to support my argument.

My argument doesn't depend on people actually using the library rather than being paranoid. The library is a non-optimized reference implementation of a format the authors developed. Those who are not paranoid can optimize and share this non-production code (GPL'd result) then use it to add support in their browser, graphics editor, camera, etc (no GPL required). Those who are not paranoid can implement the format on the own and suffer a competitive disadvantage. If a closed source shop developed it you'd just get no free reference implementation at all.

It makes no difference to me.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[Gr8Apes]

I mentioned nothing of "good", so we'll call that a red-herring. This was about freedom, and I believe I showed that the GPLv3 is absolutely anti-freedom.

Re:GPLv3 - the kiss of death

[LatvianMen]

What difference if it would be published under CC By 4.0 or other of CC licences?

New Standard, obligatory...

[willworkforbeer]

http://xkcd.com/927/

Re:New Standard, obligatory...

[cosmin_c]

Makes me want to think, really, are new standards really necessary?

Also, JPEG2000 is dead and buried and I'm using PNG for photography editing. It goes without saying that if you can process the raw file from the camera, you can also use PNG to save it/resize it and then export it to JPEG for web or other formats as required for printing.

Re:New Standard, obligatory...

[tepples]

Implicit in "Obligatory xkcd #927" comments is "I do not think this proposed standard will cause at least two standards to cease competing." What about FLIF keeps it from displacing the existing standards?

vs TIFF files?

[mveloso]

How well does it work relative to TIFF files?

Re:vs TIFF files?

[wonkey_monkey]

"Well" in what sense? TIFF's just a container.

Re:vs TIFF files?

[serviscope_minor]

How well does it work relative to TIFF files?

Exactly the same: just use TIFFTAG_COMPRESSION with the value COMPRESSION_FLIF.

Facetious of course, but TIFF is more of an archive format which is somewhat good at storing image data, than an actual image file format. Less facetiously still, TIFF allows you to specify horizontal differencing and deflate compression which makes it quite similar to PNG. PNG has 4 modes: horizontal, vertical, square and none. So, you can get TIFF to be about as good as PNG without PNGCRUSH on many images.

For pure B&W images, I've rarely ever seen anything beat TIFF if you specify the G4 FAX compression method.

So there you go: it's probably better than what TIFF currently offers except for B&W images of text.

Re:vs TIFF files?

[ianezz]

How well does it work relative to TIFF files?

Well, if you refer to the final size for lossless encoding, remember that TIFF image data can be compressed using various algorithms and the format can be extended, so your mileage may vary. Nonetheless, just for this aspect, it should compare better than the usual TIFF containing LZW compressed data, though (but I'm not sure this is still the most common lossless compression scheme being used for TIFF).

Plus, it behaves nicely on incremental decoding (less bytes to transfer to have a general idea of the whole picture). Adding further image metadata (e.g. EXIF tags) shouldn't be a big problem once the (compressed) image data format is stable.

Re:vs TIFF files?

[Anonymous Coward]

How well does it work relative to TIFF files?
TIFF is a container. In theory, FLIF could be added to TIFF. In reality, TIFF is dormant, and will remain FLIFless.

Re:vs TIFF files?

[QuasiSteve]

In lossless compression, it beats TIFF hands-down for the mainstream compression methods (packbits, LZW, ZIP). You can use pretty much whatever compression you want in a TIFF file (it's more of a container format than an encoding definition), but given how well FLIF compresses vs other image compression methods, it's pretty good.

The progressive loading is also superior to TIFF, which generally don't use progressive at all. I'm not sure how much this matters, though, as their example of using it for responsive design assumes that the graphic at lower resolutions 'as is' gives an acceptable enough result to replace current solutions that serve a different resolution image that may well have been specifically tuned for a given resolution/bandwidth. JPG already has similar progressive loading, and I don't know of any browser that will halt a JPG download after the Nth iteration deeming it 'good enough'.

It also apparently has animation support, which may be better than APNG and MNG and others. For now GIF still seems to rule the animated image domain, despite its many shortcomings (imgur's faked-out video -> gif -> mp4-served-via-html-named-gifv doesn't count).

On most other fronts, though, it seems TIFF (and other formats) may be superior. A rather big one is that it doesn't yet support metadata. Another big one for the graphics industry would be lack of CMYk and other color spaces.

It also seems to support 'only' 16 bits per channel. There's a variety of 32bpc encodings for TIFF (straight, LogLUV, etc) and I do hope that it's just an arbitrary limit such that the work done in FLIF could conceivably be added to formats like OpenEXR.

That would also largely take care of concerns like the lack of additional channels, layers, etc. that can be presented in TIFF. This would make OpenEXR the container format and FLIF the encoding (or, at least, the compression).

That would still place it squarely in the interest of those dealing with graphics (a very fast decode of the progressive version used when framescrubbing, then loading the full 10k plate when paused for a bit, for example), and not so much the average consumer.

For consumer adoption, it would need broad support among browsers (lack of webp support means that hasn't particularly taken off), from digital imaging device manufacturers (you're more likely to upload 'a FLIF file' if that's what rolled out of the camera / got written to the SD card to begin with) and in common software (but that tends to follow from the other two).

Re:vs TIFF files?

[larkost]

That question is nearly un-answerable. TIFF isn't a concrete format like PNG or JPEG, rather it is a more meta-format that can contain tiled chunks of other formats. Even that isn't quite a good description as is over-generalizes. But it does capture the basic essence. TIFF is frighteningly complex, with lots of corner cases, and in most cases is only appropriate for very large images (for the tiling), or special cases such as scientific/biological data where the raw data is embedded in the "image".

Re:vs TIFF files?

[serviscope_minor]

Any idea how well DJVU compares to CCIT G4 compression? The other person mentioned JBIG and it can be embedded in PDF. G4 can as well interestingly.

FLUFF?

[themeliorist]

I'm waiting to hear it from independent authorities.

A colleague nailed this:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Use it and never be able to sell your product. Or use it and get fired for being an idiot. Hurrah!

Almost 30 years ago a colleague of mine used a phrase, referring to the pre-L GPL licensing terms, that succinctly described this kine of "free":

"More expensive than money."

Mildly Interesting: Pieter Wuille works on Bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

From the FLIF website:

FLIF is based on MANIAC compression. MANIAC (Meta-Adaptive Near-zero Integer Arithmetic Coding) is an algorithm for entropy coding developed by Jon Sneyers and Pieter Wuille.

That Pieter Wuille is known as "sipa" on GitHub; you can see his nascent FLIF work here. Pieter is one of the major contributors to the Bitcoin project, and he is a co-founder or early employee of Blockstream.

Re:Hope this gets support behind it.

[fisted]

What part of "released under the GNU GPLv3" didn't you understand?

What's wrong with GPLv3?

[LichtSpektren]

Unless you wanted/intended to profit off of FLIF using locked hardware or DRM'd implementations, there shouldn't be any problem with the fact that its reference is GPLv3.

Re:What's wrong with GPLv3?

[Bengie]

GPLv3 is not compatible with nearly any other license. If your program is not GPLv3, you won't be able to use the reference code. you are free to reinvent the wheel and compare its output against the reference and hope it works well. Most programs in use are not GPL and FLIF will probaly never get supported until someone remakes it under a new license like BSD, Apache. or CDDL.

Rule of thumb. If your license requires a lawyer to review it, it's not free.

Re:What's wrong with GPLv3?

[tom229]

As far as I know the main differences between GPLv2 and v3 are to do with software patents. IE. Provisions to stop organisations from using modified GPL code in tandem with granted patents to maintain ownership. It's unclear whether most of the FUD in this discussion is directed at the GPL itself or specifically v3. But it's entirely unfounded. This is the appropriate license for this image format.

Re:What's wrong with GPLv3?

[tom229]

If you need to use the "reference code" for an image file format, then you are modifying said format. In which case, yes, any modifications need to provide the source as well. This is no different from GPLv2. There's no reason GPLv3 cannot exist beside any other licenses.. in fact it does in nearly any instance it's used. The Linux kernel itself is a pretty good example (GPLv2). The provisions of GPLv3 that have the corporate blowhards up in arms are those that deal with software patents. Specifically where it attempts to correct problems like the the Microsoft/Novell deal that tried to leverage software patents on GPL code to, essentially steal, exclusive ownership of it.

GPLv3 is, currently, the perfect license for any file format standard. It's your best available option if you a) don't want to start a proprietary project from scratch, and/or b) are worried about American corporate greed monetizing the work of a community in which they don't belong, or contribute.

Re:What's wrong with GPLv3?

[spauldo]

It's unclear whether most of the FUD in this discussion is directed at the GPL itself or specifically v3. But it's entirely unfounded.

It's not FUD, and its about the GPL in general - although being GPL3 makes it worse. "GPL2 or later" would have been a better (but still flawed) choice.

You know why libraries aren't generally licensed GPL, right? Anything that links to them has to have the exact same license as the library. For instance, the GPL2 licensed Inkscape can't use this library.

That's the difference between the GPL and the LGPL. You can link to LGPL libraries from any software; you can only link to GPL licensed libraries from code with the same version of the GPL.

In RMS' ideal world, all software would move to the latest GPL and it wouldn't be a problem. Good luck convincing these guys of that.

This is the appropriate license for this image format.

The GPL is not the appropriate license for any general-purpose library. That's what the LGPL is for. Or, like most reference implementations, a non-copyleft license like the MIT license.

Look, I get it, you're a promoter of software freedom. So am I. But this is the real world, and this is a reference implementation. There are conventions to follow for reference implementations, and an OSS non-copyleft license is one of those conventions. This image format could outperform every other format on the planet and it will still see no adoption outside of academia unless there's a compatibly licensed library available. Unless it gets relicensed, or someone writes a non-GPL library, this will go down as just another interesting format that sees no adoption whatsoever.

JPEG2000 allows arbitrary pan and zoom

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't replace JPEG2000 unless it allows arbitrary pan and zoom, which is that format's killer feature. That's the main benefit and use case. See, for example, NASA's HiRISE images, which are released as JP2 files... often larger than 1GB a piece. It means you can seek to the section of data you want to see, and the zoomlevel you want, without having to load the entire image into memory.

Re:So... how good are the compressed images???

[CaseCrash]

Did you even read the title of the article?

It's a lossless format, so the resulting image is the same pixel for pixel with the original.

Re:So... how good are the compressed images???

[TheCycoONE]

Um... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Great.

[SuricouRaven]

Now all we need to do is get image-makers to distribute in a format no-one can view, and software-writers to include support for a format that no-one ever encounters.

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

PNG was once in the same boat, and look at where it is today.

Re:Great.

[dcollins]

One wonders how anyone ever established any image format in the first place.

Re:Great.

[AdamHaun]

GIF was created by Compuserve in 1987 for their BBS-like service, so they had a captive user base. Their previous image standard was black and white -- 8-bit color was a new thing. JPEG was created by an international standards group to handle photographs, and I get the impression it came along about as soon as computers could handle it. I couldn't find any earlier (pre-1992) lossy color image formats. PNG was developed in 1995, within a year of Unisys announcing that it was going to enforce patents on the LZW compression used in GIFs, and even then it took many years and some bad publicity for Unisys before PNG really caught on.

GIF and JPEG were the first major color image formats of their type, and they were created about as early as possible. PNG was created in response to the limitations of GIF's patent status and 8-bit color, and was adopted much more slowly. I don't see a new image format catching on without a compelling reason, and historically, improvements in compression have not been enough. A reasonably high-quality, high-resolution image is just not that big.

By comparison, new video formats come along more frequently due to the large and increasing bandwidth requirements of high-quality streaming video, with early adoption coming from pirates, anime fansubbers, and other tech-savvy user bases.

Re:Great.

[SuricouRaven]

I can think of three ways:
- Be the first format in a field.
- Be so much better than the established formats that people rush to use it.
- Have the support of one or more really influential sponsors. Ideally Microsoft, as they can bundle support into Windows.

And how it performs with existing libraries

[postmortem]

Thousands of existing software libraries support existing image formats. None of them support this new wonder format. There are perfectly usable 10+ yrs tools that work fine with image manipulation, creation, viewing, etc. that need no updates.

Pronunciation

[BradleyUffner]

Let's get this out of the way early. Ehould we pronounce it as "Flif" or "Eff Life"?

Re:Pronunciation

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical FOSS-style shitty name. It's like a disease with these people.

Re:Pronunciation

[Zontar The Mindless]

So you don't care if it rapes your house and burns down your dog, as long as it's got a cool name?

CPU? Memory?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much CPU time does it take to compress vs the others?

How much memory does it need to compress vs the others?

How much CPU and memory does it take to decompress vs the others?

Hard to say it's better without a complete picture.

Re:CPU? Memory?

[Citizen of Earth]

This is what killed JPEG-2000 as a mass-market format. While it gives images apparently 1/2 to 1/3rd the size of an equivalent-quality JPEG, it takes dozens of times as long to decode. Result: unusable footnote. A similar thing could be said for general compression formats like BZIP2 and 7-Zip versus GZIP. Given its self-inflicted gunshot wound right out of the gate of being GPLv3-only, if one were to go to all the effort of implementing a buggy *open* driver, would it suffer the same fate as JPEG 2000?

Re:CPU? Memory?

[dwywit]

Been to the cinema lately? You're watching a stream of JPEG2000 images at 24, 25 or more frames per second.

JPEG2000 isn't dead, and if it couldn't be decoded quickly enough, it wouldn't be used for DCPs.

Re:CPU? Memory?

[dhasenan]

Encoding speed is another potential issue. With a movie, you can afford to spend two weeks rendering the final cut. If it takes three minutes to encode a single image, it's not going to be that popular.

FLAC: Where art though?

[aoeu]

FLAC

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[Rei]

It occurred to me that there might be a way around this problem: give it a header that starts with a PNG signature and then stores the FLIF data in one or more chunks that have no effect (such as text chunks or a new non-registered chunk type), then moves on to chunk(s) representing the exact same image in a conventional PNG format. So a person whose browser has no FLIF support will just read it as a PNG file that's about 50% larger than it needs to be, while a person whose browser has FLIF support can give up downloading the file as soon as it receives the FLIF chunk and not bother downloading the PNG version.

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[F.Ultra]

There is nothing prohibiting you from selling GPL3 software. You have to give all your customers access to your source code if they ask for it, but you can still charge money for it.

No real place for it

[Solandri]

Unfortunately, I don't really see a killer feature here.

• Progressive loading (first it loads a low-res lossy version, then additional data sharpens it up, until the final data makes it lossless) was a big deal back in the 1990s when people were on 56 kbps modems and it could take up to a minute for a detailed high-res photo to download. Kodak used a progressive format in their Photo CD standard back when CD readers read data off the CD at standard 154 kbps of audio CDs (in case you ever wondered where the 24x, 52x, etc CD speeds came from). Today, even cell phones have blown past those speeds.
• A few percent better compression won't matter for the same reason. Bandwidth and storage space are cheap.
• Universal support for photo-realistic vs. graphic work. Generally people needing those in lossless formats are picky enough to already select exactly which format they're gonna save it in. And again, file size is a much lower priority than compatibility with existing software and printing equipment.

NASA might be interested in it for transmitting data back from its deep space probes (New Horizons is gonna take a year to transmit back all the pictures it took). Likewise, someone might implement it as a way to reduce bandwidth when browsing the web over expensive satellite data connections while at sea. Those are the only use cases I can think of where low bandwidth still matters.

Re:No real place for it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're out of touch with half of the world. Bandwidth is extremely expensive and unreliable. The most popular browser in India simply doesn't load images, unless you explicitly click on them. Efficient progressive image formats would be great in those markets.

And if you told Google you could use half or less of the storage space for all images all of a sudden of course they would take you up on it. Storage is cheap, but definitely not free.

Re:No real place for it

[niks42]

I am a technical architect supporting the diagnostic imaging solution for a number of hospitals. CTs and MRIs are often 35-50MB each when encoded with lossless JPEG2000. Running multidisciplinary team meetings can mean 20 expensive clinicians sat together to discuss imaging from anywhere in the region, which means the time taken to fetch and display the imaging is of crucial importance. If I could switch to a lossless format that would replace JPEG2000 but still offer the progressive display, we could save half the bandwidth, cut down the storage from the petabyte of spinning disk in the region, cut clinicians wasted time (and bugger me, are they expensive!!)

IRL should be good.

Re:No real place for it

[bmajik]

I'm always on the hunt for ideal archival formats for digital media.

The ideal archival format has a few properties, ranging from most theoretical to most practical:

- a completely unencumbered specification and a completely unencumbered implementation
- a highly portable, f/oss reference implementation
- excellent quality vs. usability (e.g. lossless quality, but small to store and fast to decode)
- support in popular general purpose computing environments
- supported in popular dedicated hardware devices

FLAC gets the first few of those, but not the last one -- plenty of dedicated hardware audio players don't deal with FLAC.

Because of this, I use MP3 for audio - which theoretically gives up the first few points, but as a practical matter, those points are irrelevant, and MP3 completely dominates the industry on the last few points.

If Vorbis or FLAC or any of the things that get the first few points correct had ubiqoutous device support, I might be willing to re-rip everything into those formats for a great blend of long-term archival and easy-to-consume on any device convenience. But nothing is like that for audio.

Similarly, if I thought there was going to be a fantastic lossless image format that did everything well and was going to be massively supported and was completely unencumbered, i'd want to move everything over to it. I'd want my future digital cameras to start shooting it. I'd want my whole tool stream and whole life to just be about that format.

Re:No real place for it

[tgv]

But let's be honest: a Indian browser by itself won't make this a popular format. There's not enough money behind it. And I also doubt that India's first priorities are high res images for everyone.

Re:No real place for it

[JohnStock]

Multiply those slight benefits by a few billion used in daily worldwide internet traffic and you'll understand why it's a big deal.

I still like Adobe DNG

[Applehu Akbar]

Digital Negative was originated by an Evil Corporation(TM), but Adobe insists that they want to keep the format open and IP-free. It has been submitted to ISO a s a standard, basically TIFF with room for the rich metadata that photographers crave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I will give up my DNG when you pry the cold dead platters of my drawerful of external backup from around it.

Re:I still like Adobe DNG

[graphius]

completely different use case. DNG is a pre-processed RAW format. (debatably) useful for recording the digital bit data off a sensor. It may also contain a processed jpeg preview.
FLIF is a final processed image for viewing on the web. I doubt it would be better than a PSD of TIF for printing though.

in other words, start with a DNG*, do some post processing and output a FLIF.

*As an aside, I do not see the advantage of DNG from a consumer point of view. If your camera does not natively save as a DNG, converting is just an extra step for no real gain.

Re:I still like Adobe DNG

[Applehu Akbar]

Yes, I should have mentioned that DNG is a common format for those who shoot RAW, or image data direct from the sensor. Because there is a different RAW for every camera made, archiving as DNG gives you a generic RAW that has a much better standard of being supported years from now.

Not encumbered by patents. So..alternate universe?

[dplong]

"FLIF ... is not encumbered by software patents." I wonder what they mean by this. Maybe that the authors have not applied for patents or, as far as they know, FLIF does not infringe on any patents? Regardless, anyone at any time can make a patent claim. Unless someone with big pockets provides patent indemnification, there is no guaranteed that FLIF won't be challenged in the future.

I just tried this and it's not clear if it works.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, I fail to understand why all of the other comments so far don't seem to understand why a lossless format with a compression that's as good as jpg would be valuable. That would be a valuable thing to have, so shut up.

Nevertheless, I have just now downloaded the source code and tried it ... briefly. With the PNG I tried it with, I did indeed get a FLIF file that was as small as the JPG I got if I tried converting my PNG to JPG with ImageMagick. Very good.

On the other hand, I don't understand the "lossless" claim, because when I used flif to convert the FLIF test image back to a PNG, and then used ImageMagick's 'compare' program to compare it to the original, it seemed to find significant differences between the two at a pixel level. Mind you, the images *looked* fine, so perhaps there was something wrong with my quick test.

Re:Screenshots?

[Tapewolf]

I think they meant game and application screenshots as images to compress, since that's going to be quite a big chunk of the use cases.

Oracle v. Google

[tepples]

The GPL does not prevent you from learning from the source code to implement a compatible version under a different license.

That depends on the outcome of the forthcoming fair use defense phase of Oracle v. Google.

Re:Oracle v. Google

[tepples]

The GPL says what the GPL authors wrote.

But the GPL means what a judge says it means.

What Oracle does is up to Oracle.

And up to what a judge will let Oracle do.

Re:Oracle v. Google

[kthreadd]

In that case then that will provide good feedback for GPLv4. That's why the "or later" clause is needed, so that the license can be upgraded when bugs in the old license is found.

The most important question:

[Hillgiant]

Is it pronounced with a short or long i?

Re:The most important question:

[Mr Z]

Short I, but a hard F.

Does FLIF "provide specialized facilities"?

[tepples]

From the paragraph on that page recommending a permissive license: "Some libraries implement free standards that are competing against restricted standards". Against which restricted standard for lossless image coding is FLIF competing?

If none, then it goes on to state: For libraries that provide specialized facilities, and which do not face entrenched noncopylefted or nonfree competition, we recommend using the plain GNU GPL." So the question is one of whether FLIF "provide[s] specialized facilities".

GPL3 ref impl vs spec

[Anonymous Coward]

In anything where there's a spec and a reference implementation, often the reference implementation is a de-facto spec. Where there's something vague in the spec, you look to the reference implementation for the missing details.

Or, where the spec allows a wide range of interpretations:"The header shall include a unique identifier from 1-100 octets long." with complex interdependencies:"The header end pointer shall be a 4 bit field indicating the position of the final octet of the header in multiples of 4 octets."

This happens a lot on "home grown specs" that sort of evolve, and haven't been through multiple implementations and reviews. Most standards bodies won't accept a standard if there's only been one implementation of the standard. They want to see at least two independent implementations, for just this reason.

The initial draft of a standard often has a reference implementation to help with this sort of ambiguity.The reference implementation is "it had darn well better be a multiple of 4, and not greater than 64, because something else in the spec is inconsistent if you don't do that", and may even have comments embedded to that effect (unless the implementation author is one of those "the code speaks for itself, I eschew comments" people).

NEF to FLIF

[tepples]

Nikon cameras produce raw images in NEF format. Couldn't you just patch your NEF to PNG converter to support NEF to FLIF as well?

Re:NEF to FLIF

[Zontar The Mindless]

You've made a choice, and you've accepted the consequences thereof, right?

But what makes users choose a paid distro?

[tepples]

Unless you're basing a business model on distributing to people with Internet connections not suited for gigabyte transfers, such as dial-up, ISDN, satellite, or cellular, what will make users choose your distribution for a fee over someone else's distribution without charge?

Re:But what makes users choose a paid distro?

[F.Ultra]

This is already the case regardless of your license since all software can be found for free on torrent sites, and before that on the BBS:es.

Progressive lossless codecs are also lossy

[tepples]

Did you even read the title of the article?

It's a lossless format

It's designed to be "progressive". This means the prefix of any lossless file is a lossy file. In fact, the more graceful degradation of truncated progressive FLIF compared to truncated progressive PNG is touted as an advantage over PNG.

This Again?

[Greyfox]

I thought we put image formats to bed in the 90's. Hell, it feels like png is just barely starting to be used by reputable companies even though browsers have supported it for a while. It also seems like we still don't have a viable replacement for animated GIFs either, even though png was supposed to take care of that as well. I suppose even if this image format is wildly successful by those standards, I'll just about be ready to retire by the time we start seeing it in widespread use.

Re:This Again?

[Citizen of Earth]

viable replacement for animated GIFs either, even though png was supposed to take care of that

That effort was borked by the Second-System Effect among the PNG developers. All they needed was a simple way to replace the animated-GIF functionality. It seems that WebM will be the replacement for animated GIFs, decades later.

FLIF allows arbitrary zoom

[tepples]

It supports setting the zoom level through its progressive encoding: a prefix of the lossless FLIF bitstream can be interpreted as a low-res FLIF. As for pan, a set of FLIFs in an array (as with the "Click and Drag" xkcd comic or any Internet mapping program) could fix that.

$5 to $15 per GB

[tepples]

Bandwidth and storage space are cheap.

Bandwidth is not cheap. Cellular and satellite Internet tend to cost $5 to $15 per GB.

Nor is storage space cheap, especially with the premium for a 64 GB phone over a 16 GB one. Also servers, as Anonymous Coward mentioned in #50646339.

Knucklehead, bandwidth sure does matter

[Anonymous Coward]

If bandwidth doesn't matter, why not encourage everyone to use BMP files instead of JPEG.

Why use video codecs? Do you know how large an uncompressed video or mp3 is? They are gigantic.

If bandwidth doesn't matter, why do people use ad blocks to stop Flash ads that stream tons of video and audio.

You comment was dumb.

Re:GPL vs LPGL

[tom229]

There's no reason you can't use GPL software along side proprietary software. No revision of the GPL prevents that. What you can't do is change the specifics of the file format and try to own the entire package either through patents or monetizing your modifications without distributing the source. Don't believe the FUD.

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[pjt33]

Why would anyone do that instead of using HTTP Accept headers?

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[bhlowe]

Of course. Please give a few examples of desktop applications that are GPL3 compliant where the product and company are both profitable? [crickets...]

pointless.

[Lehk228]

it took 15 years for .png to be properly supported by all major browsers. nobody is going to bother with this at all.

Re:pointless.

[spauldo]

Yes, but only because Microsoft was dragging its feet. PNG unfortunately came out right about when IE took over.

There was quite a bit of demand for it, and pretty much every browser out there besides IE supported it well before IE got full support. If Microsoft hadn't held back web innovation so long, we would have had PNG much earlier.

I do agree though, I can't see a use case for this outside of gigantic image archives.

Mental image

[Dareth]

Now I have the mental image of RMS being eviscerated while yelling, "FREEDOM!!!"

Great marketing

[Waccoon]

I like how the web site insists that the format is a work in progress, and future versions may not actually load images created with the current implementation.

Unlike document formats, media formats rarely evolve over time. For a media format not to be production ready means it's currently worthless. Be prepared to wait a few years to use a format that will never be widely adopted. Nice.

JUST what we need!

[Tony Isaac]

Yet another image format to support.

Re:can't link it as part of larger program

[kthreadd]

It's not hard at all, as long as the program is also under a compatible version of the GPL.

Jpeg 2000 dead? No.

[rduke15]

Also, JPEG2000 is dead and buried

It certainly isn't dead. Jpeg 2000 is the standard format used in DCPs. All the movies in all the theaters have their picture track encoded with jpeg2K (in an MXF container).

Re:Jpeg 2000 dead? No.

[dwywit]

I was wondering about this - how well does it perform against J2K for transcoding video frames, in both processing power required, and the quality of the final result?

My own experience with creating DCPs from open source tools (OpenDCP) shows that the J2K conversion phase requires the most grunt. If FLIF were to produce smaller file sizes or require less processing to produce the same quality, that would be an improvement.

Good luck getting the DCI groups and end users to accept it, though. There's a lot of money invested in DCP server software that currently uses J2K.

Re:Jpeg 2000 dead? No.

[cosmin_c]

I didn't know that, however I fail to see how that is in any way relevant to the home users. I haven't seen _any_ photographer use JPEG2000. At all. Anywhere in their process flow. Nor have I seen any regular user use this format. There is even a good piece on here http://petapixel.com/2015/09/1...

I understand what you are trying to say, however it still is a niche that it's used in. And unfortunately the compatibility is as widespread as the popularity of a file format. If PNG was only used in a handful of niche applications you wouldn't have all the photo editors being taught how to read it and process it.

Multi Image Lossless Format

[TeknoHog]

For animations.

Re:Multi Image Lossless Format

[dinfinity]

I'd adopt the shit out of that.

Re:Multi Image Lossless Format

[SuiteSisterMary]

General Image Lossless Format?

Re:can't link it as part of larger program

[shutdown -p now]

Which most programs aren't, and their authors don't want them to be.

No mainstream browser today is under GPLv3. I don't think there's even any under GPLv2.

Don't like GPLv3? Write your own implementation.

[jbn-o]

So if "[e]ven when there is a permissive license, it's still incredibly difficult for a new file format to gain any traction" then there there would seem to be nothing lost by licensing the reference implementation under the GNU GPLv3 despite your vague claim that the GPL hinders "broad adoption". You say "If the ultimate goal is to promote this file format, this is not the best way of doing it" but you say nothing about what "the best way" is or what constitutes "best".

"FOSS" means free and open source software, software released under a license approved of by both the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative; there are many other such licenses. It's unclear what you mean by "FOSS/GPL" as being somehow distinct from the "GPL" (meaning the GNU General Public License), a term used for decades which requires no qualification. Perhaps you're confused by the term "GNU/Linux" which is the GNU operating system in combination with the Linux kernel (as opposed to, GNU/HURD or GNU/kFreeBSD, to name a couple of examples, which are the GNU OS with the HURD or FreeBSD kernels respectively).

For being moderated as insightful I see a self-contraction, unclear use of confused terminology, and a complaint hinting that something far better should be done without any explanation of what that is.

Great...

[God of Lemmings]

Another image standard... hopefully Microsoft won't drop the ball on this one like they did with png over and over.

Re:Don't like GPLv3? Write your own implementation

[Dutch Gun]

If it wasn't clear by reading between the lines, I consider a permissive license (like zlib, libPNG, BSD, etc) more suitable than GPLv3 for a reference library if your goal is to ensure broad, industry-wide adoption of a new file format. My assumption is that very few people or organizations will be interested in writing their own library from scratch simply to adopt someone's new file format. Your reasoning seems to be "if it's already difficult, why not make it more difficult still?" which seems a strange argument to make.

That the GPLv3 license hinders broad adoption should be self-evident, as the license specifically prohibits use of the code in non GPL projects. That hardly seems like a "vague claim". That's a simple fact. Perhaps you should read Richard Stallman's very pragmatic view on this matter, as I agree with his reasoning here.

As for the FOSS/GPLv3 thing... The GPLv3 is the most well-known copyleft FOSS license, which means that if you use that license, any FOSS software you release is guaranteed to remain as FOSS-only code. I admittedly could have worded that better.

Why

[xororand]

The question is why anyone would want non-free software.

Re:Why

[spauldo]

GPL isn't just bad for proprietary software, you know.

Libraries written under the GPL are next to useless. Mozilla? Not GPL compatible. Webkit? Not GPL3 compatible. Chromium? Hard to say - it claims to have GPL3 code in it, but I don't know how they pull it off, unless it's all in separate executables. PHP? Nope. Apache? Nope.

All the above is open source. None of it can use a GPL library, except possibly Chromium.

GPL is great for applications, if you don't expect a lot of 3rd party commercial developers. If you do, it sucks - the GPL is the reason you don't see games written in Blender's game engine, for instance - but for the most part, it works out pretty well. Libraries are a different matter altogether, because your only choice with a GPL'd library is to use the exact same license as the library you're linking to. Want to link to two libraries - one GPL2 without an "or later" clause, and one GPL3? Too bad, you're screwed.

Then of course, there's the fact that not everyone in the free software world shares the FSF's philosophy. The BSDs are actively trying to remove GPL code from the base systems - they have high hopes for Clang to replace gcc as the system compiler, for instance.

Most free software licenses don't have the whole copyleft thing going on and are pretty much mix-and-match. You don't worry about it if you're working with 2 or 3 clause BSD, MIT, or ISC licenses. Even LGPL is pretty harmless, because non-GPL software can link to it.

Making your library GPL is a sure-fire way to make sure no one uses it. I predict that, unless the developer relicenses it so something a bit more sane, this will be the last we hear of FLIF.

Re:Screenshots?

[F.Ultra]

Ah, know I get it. Tough test to do though since a screenshot could be of anything really.

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[F.Ultra]

Why must it be "desktop applications"? Software is more diverse than that. Red Hat for one is quite profitable. I myself work for a company where all our client side software is released as GPL3, now our business is not selling software since we sell a service but who cares exactly where the money comes in?

Re:can't link it as part of larger program

[kthreadd]

That's correct. My point was not that it was easy for all programs, just that the original statement that using the GPL makes it hard to even use the library as part of another program simply isn't true at all. It would assume that no program is licensed under GPL, and that certainly isn't the case.

Re:GPL vs LPGL

[canajin56]

They can talk to each other, depending how they do it. Just having two programs chatting doesn't always make them a "single system".

Can I release a non-free program that's designed to load a GPL-covered plug-in?

It depends on how the program invokes its plug-ins. For instance, if the program uses only simple fork and exec to invoke and communicate with plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the license of the plug-in makes no requirements about the main program.

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. In order to use the GPL-covered plug-ins, the main program must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and that the terms of the GPL must be followed when the main program is distributed for use with these plug-ins.

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the ‘main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case.

Whose idea was this mandatory subject nonsense?

[Krigl]

Requiescat In Pace, FLIF.

format change vs reference implementation change

[bingoUV]

No, reference implementation changes do not mean all implementations have to change. Only format changes mean all implementations have to change.

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[bhlowe]

Why desktop? Because images are meant to be viewed.. And because GPL FLIF won't become a standard for web browsers, a desktop app would be the most logical way to view these images (unless you want to convert it to PNG, which defeats the purpose of having a new standard.)

The lack of desktop apps that use GPL that are profitable is the glaring proof that GPL is not good for developers in that rather large market segment. Web-based services use a lot of GPL, but they have a free pass from having to release all their source code that touches GPL code.

I'll add that I am a software developer. I write desktop apps, web services, and pure server apps that I sell. My apps sell online whether I'm on vacation or working for a client, learning new code, or adding features. By avoiding GPL, I can use my software anywhere I like, sell it any way I like, and not worry about hiring a legal team to review compliance with the licenses. More importantly, I don't have to perform tech support to get paid for my own work-- that would limit my ability to earn money to the number of hours in the day I want to work.

I prefer two ideals: "write once, sell many" and "willing seller, willing buyer", as it works well for me. Unless you're retired, or happy to live as a pauper, how is "Sell your software, but give it away if anyone wants it for free." a better strategy to earn a living? I'm sure I just wasted a lot of my and your time.. but who knows.

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[F.Ultra]

GPL does not imply that you sell your software and have to give it away if anyone wants it for free. It only means that you have to give the source code to any of your paying customers if they ask for it. So you don't have to give it to any one else, of course one of your paying customers could then compile a binary and put up on their website or a torrent site. However this they can do today even without the source since they can simply put your closed binary on any torrent site. The difference is of course that with GPL they would be legally in the clear but that does not seam to prevent any one from pirating software today.

That it does not fully fit your market model is something that I do understand and I'm in no way trying to convince you to switch to GPL or whatever, I simply pointed out that it's possible to sell GPL software (since I do it myself I know that it's possible). And do I think that GPL FLIF will see wide adoptance? Hell no.

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[bhlowe]

Appreciate the dialog. A few questions...

1. Is your product's source fully available online? (If yes, skip 2&3)
2. Has anyone asked for the source code?
3. Even though I haven't bought your product, would you send all the source code so I can post it to github?
4. Won't GPL use reduce your ability to sell the company or integrate the product with other commercial apps?


I just don't get how GPL would ever make sense for a programmer trying to earn a living. Fine for hobby projects, or learning a new skill, or when you're feeling philanthropic.. but as a business decision?

Bonus question... What's your GPL company or product?

Re:Best of all its "Free".... HAHAHAHAH

[F.Ultra]

Yes all source code is fully available on our public ftp server. Now using GPL is much easier for me than it's for you since what we sell isn't the applications as such. What we do is sell financial data (stock market, forex, etc data) so our income is for the data provided and not for the applications as such which of course is vastly different from a pure application developer like you.

However, all our competitors are only selling their data with closed binary applications and API:s, and one of our main benefits over those competitors are in fact some of our software (especially our datafeed to sql application), a leverage that they could remove in anytime by simply changing our software to also accepting their data streams and thus making it easy for our customers to just switch supplier. Another drawback for us to release our sources is that it exposes our highly compressed datafeed protocol something that in our industry otherwise is seem as highly protected IP (since we are in the business to (among other things) deliver as much data using as little resources [bandwidth having to be one of them] as possible)

However I do feel that releasing all our software under the GPL has benefits that trump the potential downsides; for example we had one customer who uses Solaris and since they could simply download the source and compile our stuff themselves they could become paying and happy customers (otherwise I would simply have to tell them that "sorry we do not support Solaris"). And we have received some patches from end users that fixed things in configurations which we would probably never be in position of.

Regarding your point #4, integration is not a problem (and we have our stuff integrated into some systems already) since those parts (our API) are released under LGPL. Selling the company is not something that we have an interest in ever, there is no exit plan.

Link to our website since you asked about which company I work for: https://millistream.com/ and complete sources can be found at our ftp server: ftp://ftp.millistream.com/