GIF Format Issues

[Stephen Lime]

Greetings: At sometime in the near future a switch from LZW GIF to something
else, PNG, JPEG or non-LZW GIF will be necessary. Unisys, the LZW patent
holder, requires that software using it's compression technology be licensed. GD,
the free GIF graphics library used within the MapServer uses LZW. GD was
written well before all of these legal happenings and it's unclear what Unisys' stance
on older software is. New versions of GD support PNG only so it's clear how those
authors feel.

To make MapServer useful as OpenSource the reliance on LZW to end. GD 2.0 
looks very promising with support for PNG (up to 24bit), JPG and hopefully a non-LZW
GIF format, but I've seen no timetable for a 2.0 release.

Anyone got any comments or ideas?

Steve
 

Stephen Lime
Internet Applications Analyst
MIS Bureau - MN DNR

(651) 297-2937
steve.lime at dnr.state.mn.us