Friday the GIF patent will expire!

[takagi]

Some 18 months ago, the thread June 20, 2003 GIF Patent Expiration Day! [webmasterworld.com] was started. Well, that is Friday.

Some history.
LZW (Lempel Ziv Welch) algorithm is used to compress images in GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) files. Unisys Corporation patented this algorithm on 20th June 1983 and it expires after 20 years (countdown can be seen here [wingimp.org]). In the early days of Internet this format released by CompuServe in 1987 became popular to store images. But Unisys decided in December 1994 that anyone who used the format needed a license. Big confusion and a lot of websites removed GIF files or changed them from GIF to JPEG.

So in a few days you can put back the old GIF files without paying for the license.

[outrun]

I think if you read this thread properly Easy_Coder especially what Pete_Dizzle said, now open source software can now incorporate gifs, the GIMP can support gifs, PHP will be able to incorporate gifs without any licensing issues, just to name a few.

regards,
Mark