MapServer and MrSID

[Barry Demchak]

Hi, all --

I am just getting going with MapServer and GIS in general. Please pardon 
the naive question:

I have been offered the use of a very large aerial photograph that's 
currently accessible by ESRI software. I'm told that the photo is provided 
under MrSID compression.

Can MapServer take slices from a photo in this form?? If not, what do I 
have  to do to the photo to make it accessible.

(I have been reading up on MrSID, and I can see that it's a method for 
amalgamating tiled photos ... so I can't really see how "unpacking" a MrSID 
file would be a good thing for MapServer. So that leads me to believe that 
either MapServer supports a MrSID file or it doesn't. True?? MrSID looks 
patented, which leads me to think that maybe MapServer won't do it.)

Good advice needed ...

Thanks!