Yes, I was confused too. So I picked up that thing with the MOUTHPIECE and the EARPIECE and the BUTTONS, and I CALLED the special Red hat support line at E*Trade, and y'know what? My account is completely ready. Elapsed time less than four business days.
I'll be highly amused if a bunch of people miss out on this purely because they are allergic to old technology. It wouldn't be the first time. Certain acquaintances of mine whined forever about the difficulty of opening an E*Trade account. Not coincidentally, they don't use phones either.
At last, a really smart question on this thread. There's been a lot of clueless commentary about copyrights (which are irrelevant).
We recently received a copy of a message from Unisys to a potential academic GD 1.5 user, who wanted to enable the LZW_LICENCED option in GD 1.5. They were informed that, although they would normally be permitted a free license for LZW, the use of unauthorized source code (GD) would expose them to possible legal action.
We withdrew GD and communicated with Unisys. We determined that their license terms would not allow free distribution of source code for LZW. So we withdrew GD indefinitely until an all-JPEG-and-PNG version can be created, which shouldn't take long, with the support of outside volunteers (that's your cue).
"So why not just go back to run-length-encoded GIF images in GD?"
Because (a) it's an interesting legal question whether anything an LZW decoder can decode is an infringement of the patent or not, and we don't have a whole lot of dough for legal fees; and (b) they are big (although the code for generating them is extremely clever and I don't mean to criticize the folks at Hutchison Software Corporation who came up with the stuff).
"What about decompression?"
All versions of GD contain GIF decompression support. Some people believe the patent does not apply to LZW decompression when LZW compression is not present. Again, this is subject to legal interpretation, and we are a small company without a whole lot of dough for legal fees.
"What about your company's internal use of GD in its products?"
Our products use GD 1.3, on the strength of the legal arguments above for RLE compression and for decompression in the absence of compression. We do this in our own products knowing that there are a reasonable number of copies out there for which we can afford to accept legal responsibility.
For the general public's use of GD, we can't possibly accept potential liability for untold zillions of applications.
So, we are working toward a PNG-and-JPEG, 100% open-source version of GD, and we invite your participation. This will be a version that does not expose us to legal risk we can't afford, and which produces better-compressed images for the end user. I urge everyone following the controversy to support this option.
Gee, thanks so much for reporting on the availability of the sports illustrated swimsuit edition. I could never find this out from the mainstream media which is always doing its best to hide airbrushed pictures of damp identical plastic 'women' from the freedom-loving public.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I was confused too. So I picked up that
thing with the MOUTHPIECE and the EARPIECE
and the BUTTONS, and I CALLED the special
Red hat support line at E*Trade, and y'know
what? My account is completely ready. Elapsed
time less than four business days.
I'll be highly amused if a bunch of people
miss out on this purely because they are
allergic to old technology. It wouldn't be
the first time. Certain acquaintances of
mine whined forever about the difficulty
of opening an E*Trade account. Not
coincidentally, they don't use phones either.
At last, a really smart question on this thread.
There's been a lot of clueless commentary about
copyrights (which are irrelevant).
We recently received a copy of a message from
Unisys to a potential academic GD 1.5 user,
who wanted to enable the LZW_LICENCED option
in GD 1.5. They were informed that, although
they would normally be permitted a free
license for LZW, the use of unauthorized
source code (GD) would expose them to
possible legal action.
We withdrew GD and communicated with Unisys.
We determined that their license terms would
not allow free distribution of source code
for LZW. So we withdrew GD indefinitely until
an all-JPEG-and-PNG version can be created,
which shouldn't take long, with the support
of outside volunteers (that's your cue).
"So why not just go back to run-length-encoded
GIF images in GD?"
Because (a) it's an interesting legal question
whether anything an LZW decoder can decode
is an infringement of the patent or not, and
we don't have a whole lot of dough for legal
fees; and (b) they are big (although the
code for generating them is extremely clever
and I don't mean to criticize the folks at
Hutchison Software Corporation who came up
with the stuff).
"What about decompression?"
All versions of GD contain GIF decompression
support. Some people believe the patent does not
apply to LZW decompression when LZW compression
is not present. Again, this is subject to legal
interpretation, and we are a small company
without a whole lot of dough for legal fees.
"What about your company's internal use of
GD in its products?"
Our products use GD 1.3, on the strength of the
legal arguments above for RLE compression and
for decompression in the absence of compression.
We do this in our own products knowing that
there are a reasonable number of copies out
there for which we can afford to accept legal
responsibility.
For the general public's use of GD, we can't
possibly accept potential liability for untold
zillions of applications.
So, we are working toward a PNG-and-JPEG,
100% open-source version of GD, and we invite
your participation. This will be a version that
does not expose us to legal risk we can't afford,
and which produces better-compressed images
for the end user. I urge everyone following
the controversy to support this option.
Gee, thanks so much for reporting on the
availability of the sports illustrated
swimsuit edition. I could never find this
out from the mainstream media which is
always doing its best to hide airbrushed
pictures of damp identical plastic 'women'
from the freedom-loving public.