Thanks for the clarification, Michael!<div><br></div><div>And your comments about IP may also add to the paper I am developing (or another).</div><div><br></div><div>I have a theme I plan to develop at some point - mostly dealing with the inherent limitations of copyrighted software in an era of cloud computing...</div>
<div><br></div><div>-Eric</div><div><br clear="all">-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-<br>Eric B. Wolf New! 720-334-7734<br>USGS Geographer<br>Center of Excellence in GIScience<br>PhD Student <br>
CU-Boulder - Geography<br><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:54 PM, Michael P. Gerlek <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mpg@lizardtech.com">mpg@lizardtech.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Some clarifications:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- MrSID has both lossy and lossless modes</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- MrSID is not fractal based; it uses wavelets (and arithmetic
encoding)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- you can’t copyright algorithms; the MrSID source code certainly
is, however</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- MrSID relies on a number of patents, not all of which are
owned by LizardTech</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- reading MrSID does not require any fees; we have libraries you
can download, although they are not open source</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">That said, some editorial comments (although I’m now
wishing I hadn’t been so quick to rise to Landon’s bait :-)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- Some of you know the history of trying to open source MrSID; I
won’t go into that here, except to say that LizardTech doesn’t own
all of the required IP needed to make that happen.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- If we are speaking of the NAIP data, then no, it is not
exclusively available in MrSID format; it is also shipped as GeoTIFFs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- JPEG 2000 is a very robust open standard alternative to MrSID,
and a number of players already support it (including LizardTech), but not
enough to make it viable for certain domains like NAIP.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">- some of you also know the history on open JP2 support: there
is today no open source implementation of JP2 that is suitable for geo
work. Alas.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">-mpg</span></p><div class="im">
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt">
<a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">discuss-bounces@lists.osgeo.org</a>] <b>On
Behalf Of </b>Eric Wolf<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, August 20, 2009 2:15 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> OSGeo Discussions<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Open File Formats and Proprietary
Algorithms</span></p>
</div>
<p> </p>
</div><p>The MRSID format is a very special case - and perhaps an
opportunity for a new FOSS file format. MRSID is a lossless, fractal-based,
multi-scale raster compression format. LizardTech has the algorithms to encode
and decode MRSID locked up in copyrights, and I believe, patents. Even
companies like ESRI shell out big bucks to LizardTech to be able to read and
write the MRSID format.</p><div class="im">
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p>I guess I missed the context of the discussion. Is the
government releasing certain data exclusively in this format? If so, I think
the argument can be made against this practice. The different in compression
between MRSID and gziped TIFFs isn't really that great in this day of cheap
disks and fat pipes.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div>
<p>-Eric</p>
</div>
<div>
<p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br clear="all">
-=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-<br>
Eric B. Wolf
New! 720-334-7734<br>
USGS Geographer<br>
Center of Excellence in GIScience<br>
PhD Student <br>
CU-Boulder - Geography<br>
<br>
<br>
</p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div></div>
</div>
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