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Free Lossless Image Format

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Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#181

Post by Someone »

snuxoll wrote: post #134
zanny wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL is compatible with BSD, MPL, and MIT licenses that Firefox / Chromium use. The problem is more that Firefox / Chrome ship proprietary bits like the DRM modules that would violate the linking GPL coverage of flif. And that Chrome is proprietary. Its going to need to be relicensed LGPL to be included.

> The GPL is compatible with BSD, MPL, and MIT licenses that Firefox / Chromium use. Yes, it is compatible, the other way around. You can take BSD, MPL, MIT code and adopt it into a GPL project, not the other way around. EDIT: Even LGPL won't work here as it will prevent use on Windows Phone, iOS and Android.

If Apple's attributions are correct (1), there is LGPL software on iOS, for example libiconv, and even GPL software (libgcc, libstdc++), but those have linking exceptions. WebKit also is partially LGPL.

Possibly not coincidental, the latest LGPL version I could find in the 'legal' section is 2.1.

(1) they may be overly cautious, given that they mention the L4 kernel, lua, and Tiny Scheme.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#182

Post by logfromblammo »

bostonpete wrote: post #97
rhaps0dy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you really want to duplicate work and write, test, debug, maintain... a FLIF decoder yourself? Also, I'm not sure how far do you have to deviate from the original code to not be covered by its license.

Technically, I believe the answer is 100%. If you're using the original code as a starting point or a reference for your code, then you're basically creating a derivative work.

Correct, you have to do a clean room implementation. You either start from a public standard, or you need two separate teams. One team is allowed to look at the existing code and make a detailed description of what it does, but not write any new code, and the other team can read the descriptions from the first team and write the new code, but they can't ever look at the old code.

This only works to avoid copyright infringement. Patent infringement cannot be avoided in this fashion.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#184

Post by kazinator »

robert_foss wrote: post #147
jobigoud wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a company wants get something for free, expecting it to publish source code changes is not an actually high threshold. Obviously the issue is not about publishing changes to the library, it's about publishing the rest of the source which just uses the library as a building block.

You're free to link to compiled GPL libraries. There is nothing forcing you to change the license of your product unless you intend to integrate the sourcecode.

I also believe this, but it is not an established fact. The GPL does prohibit it, and so whether that is actually enforceable has to be tested in a court of law. So you are in fact not free to do this, if you have a boss above you who cares dearly about the company steering clear of hot water.

I'd be willing to testify as a technical expert in a court of law that the GPL cannot reasonably rule out dynamic linking; that dynamic linking to a program is a form of use (like invoking a command line and passing it arguments) and not integration. The proof is that dynamically linked components can be replaced by clean-room substitutes which work exactly alike, or at least well enough so that the main software can function.

For example, a program can be shipped with a stub library which behaves like GNU Readline (but perhaps doesn't have all its features). The users themselves can replace that with a GNU Readline library. Thus, the program's vendor isn't even redistributing the GPL'ed component. They can provide it as a separate download or whatever. However, if they were to include a GNU Readline binary for the convenience of the users, then the program supposedly infringes. This is clearly nonsense.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#185

Post by colanderman »

mthoms wrote: post #172
colanderman wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is a FLIF that you only download half of.

If compared to the original yes, but that's apples to oranges. They are different resolutions. It'd be more accurate to compare it to a pre-generated resizing of the original image (at the same effective resolution as the "half downloaded" FLIF).

A compressed image which does not reconstitute to the original image is by definition lossy. You can't scale a PNG down by 25% and call that "lossless compression".

Though I'll gladly take your logic and call the first 1/64th of a progressive JPEG lossess (which it is, since at that point you only have the DC offsets of basic blocks, which undergo no lossy compression).

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#187

Post by yarrel »

versteegen wrote: post #58
davexunit wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really propriety software - as you & bildung said, it's not a problem if you can just buy a license. I meant anyone working on FLOSS software that isn't GPL compatible, which is probably most FLOSS software. MIT, BSD, etc are very popular these days. And image formats are generally intended to be widely-adopted standards used across different applications.

Most "FLOSS" software is GPL. Almost all is GPL compatible.

But even the FSF recommend sometimes using don't-care-about-user-freedom licenses for strategic reasons, for example driving adoption of a new free codec...

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#188

Post by spullara »

One of the least interesting parts of this is that it is GPL. Someone should reimplement it with a BSD license so it can be used more widely. AFAIK & IANAL, but I don't think you could integrate this with FF, Chrome, Safari or IE.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#189

Post by JoshTriplett »

josteink wrote: post #71
emergentcypher wrote: post #65

Why all the hate for GPLv3?

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…

> RMS has been shown to be right about his stance on freedom.

The GNU project has specifically commented on cases where using an more permissive license makes sense, one being to encourage the widespread use of a file format or standard.

I personally like copyleft quite a bit, but I don't think it makes sense for this particular case.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#190

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bostonpete wrote: post #97
rhaps0dy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you really want to duplicate work and write, test, debug, maintain... a FLIF decoder yourself? Also, I'm not sure how far do you have to deviate from the original code to not be covered by its license.

Technically, I believe the answer is 100%. If you're using the original code as a starting point or a reference for your code, then you're basically creating a derivative work.

You can copy how something works, copyright doesn't protect that, patents protect that. If the form of it is necessary for how the thing works then it's not an artistic expression and so you can copy that directly. Generally speaking there are not interoperability exclusions though so if the choice isn't technically essential you can't copy.
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