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Free Lossless Image Format

flif.info

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Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#101

Why all the hate for GPLv3?

IMO...

For opensource applications, they're seeking widespread user adoption. To that end, they want to keep users & developers focused on a single project & codebase. Releasing under a license like the GPL ensures they can easily incorporate features from any knockoffs/forks... which pretty well ensures there won't be any longterm knockoffs/forks (unless the project is mismanaged).

GPL isn't so great for opensource libraries though. They don't care about users, they want widespread adoption by developers and their applications. Since applications may have all kinds of licensing requirements of their own (many of which can't mix with GPL), licensing a library under the GPL automatically limits the library's potential adoption.

Which is why LGPL makes a lot more sense for a library. It allows incorporation of forks, but at the same time allows widespread adoption of the library.

Of course, the BSD license almost makes great sense for a library, but mainly for ones which have little expectation that there will be significant enhancements made under closed-source forks; or ones whose purpose is to contribute a basic reference implementation for the greater good.

E.g. a BSD license works well for something like a reference PNG decoder, to encourage adoption of the format; but less sense for something like ffmpeg, where the project's survival depends on garnering as many contributions as possible from a limited base of coders (experts in the intricacies of video codecs).

Thus I think it's less hate, and more frustration that by using the wrong license, the project has hobbled itself at the start, which clack of contributor interest before the project even gets off the ground... and folks would like to see something (like) this succeed.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPLv3 will be a hard sell...

In fact, it makes it impossible to use in practice. None of the major browsers are GPLv3.

The Mozilla Public License used by Firefox is compatible with the GPL.

Also, if it's a file format and not just a particular library, shouldn't it be possible to reimplement support for it under different licenses on different browsers?

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#103
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing code is no longer cool if people have to share back. Or at least so it seems. The GPL-hate in here really is quite immense, even though time and time again, RMS has been shown to be right about his stance on freedom. Should we attribute it to people's desire for a quick ("free") fix over long term considerations? It's hard to tell, but I suspect the silicon valley influence here doesn't help. There everyone w…

> Sharing code is no longer cool if people have to share back. Or at least so it seems. There are plenty of licenses which require/encourage that. The problem with GPL is that everything that touches the GPL code has to become GPL or compatible. Adobe for example will never put this in Photoshop, or Microsoft in Internet Explorer, as they do not want to GPL their software. Net result is no wide support for this image…

That's the whole point of GPL. To move people away from closed source by having a sperate ecosystem that cannot be contaminated. The problem is that the ecosystem hasn't been that compelling besides a few things such as Linux.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#105
post #100

[deleted]

"Free Lossless Image Format": the quality metric for lossless images is "identical pixel by pixel to the reference format".

(There's obviously a question about how to judge quality for a given partial download of a FLIF file, but for the total file there really isn't any question of quality metrics at all.)

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#107
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say it's true for a wide scale usage. However, imagine a small company, startup, or a sole developer using this for their projects or as a internal format. I found it very interesting even if there is not a widespread use of it.

It is interesting! I agree but I guess I am getting to old. I keep hearing awesome new formats and than they just waste away. The few success stories are few and in between. FLAC and OGG are a good example. OGG is a decent format and I prefer it to MP3 but it really just withered. FLAC is awesome but it is far from main stream. Heck even SVG is far from where it SHOULD be.

And then there is Opus which took the world in storm.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unusable license Pure bullshit. Unusable for whom? Proprietary software developers? That's the intent.

Or any open source project that is not GPLv3, like Firefox.

Firefox is GPLv3 compatible. It's quite likely that it will support this format - although, if it's the only major browser doing so, it will not be adopted by most web publishers.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#109
post #19

Wow! Higher compression than any other format, full transparency support, progressive/partial loading AND animations?! I can't wait for this to get widespread adoption! Github repo here btw: https://github.com/jonsneyers/FLIF

GPLv3 will be a hard sell...

If it gets popular, I'm sure decoders with more permissive licenses will show up.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#110

Why all the hate for GPLv3?

Look at it from the perspective of someone interested in implementing this: once you put GPL code into a project, you're required to license the entire project under the GPL. That means that anyone trying to implement this format, even other open-source projects (i.e. every browser except for Internet Explorer/Edge, tools like ImageMagick, etc.) would have to relicense their entire project just to use it, which in practice means the format is never going to be adopted.

The tragedy is that there's already a decent license for this exact need:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html

That would allow e.g. Firefox to use the format as long as they either did not modify it at all or were willing to relicense any changes they made to the image codec itself under the same license, which is a much more reasonable requirement.

This is important because adding a new image format is already expensive. Mike Shaver wrote a good comment explaining why Firefox never shipped JPEG 2000 support due to the expense of having a high-performance, reliable and secure implementation:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36351#c120

If you're adding to that already big cost the requirement that you override the project's decision about what license to use and go through and get permission from everyone who's ever provided a patch to relicense their code, it just doesn't seem likely to happen.

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