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Free Lossless Image Format Publications

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Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#31

Post by mjevans »

noxa wrote: post #17
snvzz wrote: post #15

When trying to promote an open format, LGPLv3 and such reference implementations aren't exactly helping. You'd want to maximize adoption, and there BSD can help. Adoption of Xiph.org's Vorbis was in good part supported by such a decision.

The LGPL reference implementation is what has scared off me and many others I know who had an interest in this work. In many corporate environments LGPL is untouchable.

I really don't understand WHY though; aside from paranoia.

The entire point of LGPL is supposed to be that your corporation provides a binary blob which can be linked against any other such binary blob that supports the requested interface. In this manor someone can use any modified (usually security updates) version of the LGPL library with the rest of your work.

I guess if you require obfuscation or signing of your company's blob things are more difficult. However in that case why aren't you using a security model that signs the code you own and segments out the code you do not?

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#32

Post by vanderZwan »

mark-r wrote: post #16
vanderZwan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the encoder , which isn't something browsers would usually bother with. The decoder is Apache licensed.

Thanks, I missed that. Still it means that e.g. Photoshop will never support it, leading to the same conclusion.

Well, IANAL but I think the original creator of FLIF could still decide give a special license to Adobe if they want to negotiate one, no?

EDIT: practically confirmed elsewhere in the thread by the original author, with motivation:

> There is still a lot of room for improvement in the encoder, which is why (at least for now) it has the LGPL license, to ensure that improvements can be integrated in the reference implementation

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#33

Post by mark-r »

vanderZwan wrote: post #32
mark-r wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I missed that. Still it means that e.g. Photoshop will never support it, leading to the same conclusion.

Well, IANAL but I think the original creator of FLIF could still decide give a special license to Adobe if they want to negotiate one, no? EDIT: practically confirmed elsewhere in the thread by the original author, with motivation: > There is still a lot of room for improvement in the encoder, which is why (at least for now) it has the LGPL license, to ensure that improvements can be integrated in the reference imple…

IANAL either, but I suspect it would be between difficult and impossible to offer an alternate license once outside contributions are integrated.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#34

Post by boramalper »

faragon wrote: post #18

How does it compare to fax Group 4 compression [1] or JBIG2 [2] for 1bpp -e.g. black and white- images? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_4_compression [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBIG2

> Patents for JBIG2 are owned by IBM and Mitsubishi.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#35

Post by jonsneyers »

mark-r wrote: post #16
vanderZwan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the encoder , which isn't something browsers would usually bother with. The decoder is Apache licensed.

Thanks, I missed that. Still it means that e.g. Photoshop will never support it, leading to the same conclusion.

I'm open to negotiation if Adobe would want to include the FLIF encoder in Photoshop. The other contributors have signed a CLA that allows me to change the licensing to anything more permissive than GPLv3. So if Adobe wants it, they can pay for a non-copyleft license (e.g. Apache 2.0). If that ever happens, I'll be happy to share the licensing fees with the other contributors and donate some of it to the FSF.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#36

Post by jonsneyers »

faragon wrote: post #18

How does it compare to fax Group 4 compression [1] or JBIG2 [2] for 1bpp -e.g. black and white- images? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_4_compression [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBIG2

Here are some results for a few black & white images from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD-ScottForesman : (I only compare to JBIG2, not Group 4, since JBIG2 is supposed to be the best of those two)

  JBIG2     FLIF      PNG
  11690    10903    27093  1971_San_Jose_Scale_Scales_on_Branch
  10458     9761    23466  1971_San_Jose_Scale_Winged_Adult
  44809    44301   105555  Accommodation_ladder
  15966    14882    44073  Aconite
  27031    25877    59353  Adder
  13569    13302    40317  Adenoids
  36409    35058    84826  African_elephant
   6890     6899    12982  Aft
  24465    23170    51297  Agate_A-40
  18969    17896    24261  Aisle
   8612     8590    23408  Allen_wrench_and_screw
   9968     9104    11792  Alpaca
  12258    11952    36657  Alternately
 196083   192611   254895  Amazon_River
  76572    73529   105637  Arabian_Sea
 275124   256820   311448  Archery_colored
 139482   137329   162432  Argonne_Forest
  40681    39952    70999  Astrolabe
  24950    23317    32007  Brace
  43808    41113   116671  Deer_2

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#37

Post by faragon »

jonsneyers wrote: post #36
faragon wrote: post #18

How does it compare to fax Group 4 compression [1] or JBIG2 [2] for 1bpp -e.g. black and white- images? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_4_compression [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBIG2

Here are some results for a few black & white images from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD-ScottForesman : (I only compare to JBIG2, not Group 4, since JBIG2 is supposed to be the best of those two) JBIG2 FLIF PNG 11690 10903 27093 1971_San_Jose_Scale_Scales_on_Branch 10458 9761 23466 1971_San_Jose_Scale_Winged_Adult 44809 44301 105555 Accommodation_ladder 15966 14882 44073 Aconite 27031 25877 59353 Add…

Thank you! It looks amazing. So unless processing speed or memory requirements being a handicap, the FLIF could be a real generic graphics compression candidate :-)

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#38

Post by [deleted] »

jonsneyers wrote: post #36
faragon wrote: post #18

How does it compare to fax Group 4 compression [1] or JBIG2 [2] for 1bpp -e.g. black and white- images? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_4_compression [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBIG2

Here are some results for a few black & white images from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD-ScottForesman : (I only compare to JBIG2, not Group 4, since JBIG2 is supposed to be the best of those two) JBIG2 FLIF PNG 11690 10903 27093 1971_San_Jose_Scale_Scales_on_Branch 10458 9761 23466 1971_San_Jose_Scale_Winged_Adult 44809 44301 105555 Accommodation_ladder 15966 14882 44073 Aconite 27031 25877 59353 Add…

[deleted]

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#39

Post by faragon »

boramalper wrote: post #34
faragon wrote: post #18

How does it compare to fax Group 4 compression [1] or JBIG2 [2] for 1bpp -e.g. black and white- images? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_4_compression [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBIG2

> Patents for JBIG2 are owned by IBM and Mitsubishi.

I was interested in how they compare in compression terms. Anyway, remaining JBIG2 patents expire in 2019.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format Publications

#40

Post by vanderZwan »

mark-r wrote: post #33
vanderZwan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, IANAL but I think the original creator of FLIF could still decide give a special license to Adobe if they want to negotiate one, no? EDIT: practically confirmed elsewhere in the thread by the original author, with motivation: > There is still a lot of room for improvement in the encoder, which is why (at least for now) it has the LGPL license, to ensure that improvements can be integrated in the reference imple…

IANAL either, but I suspect it would be between difficult and impossible to offer an alternate license once outside contributions are integrated.

Good point, I had forgotten about the viral aspect of the GPL. But it looks like Sneyers already thought of that too, luckily.
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