Sounds amazing. But: no information on encoding time. I'm assuming it's going to be a beast.
Which, IMO, is totally fine.
Free Lossless Image Format
191–200 of 374 posts
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#192One 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.
No kidding. If you want an image format to become widely adopted and standardized, GPLing the code is a pretty bad idea.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#193This is really interesting. One of the most interesting parts is the progressive decoding/responsive images. http://flif.info/example.php (go to the bottom of the page). Basically, the last example shows that, if you want a scaled version of the image, you can simply stop decompressing. No need for multiple image files. Just create one with very high quality and decompress until you get the quality you want and scale…
JPEG has something cooler, you can first load a black-white smaller picture, then load more color and more detail.
FLIF also emits Y first (actually alpha first), before the chroma channels.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#194Wow! 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...
Actually, now that I think about it a bit, maybe not. If your only interface to this is feeding it a compressed file and getting back a bitmap, then you haven't derived from it. You enter a certain legal gray zone, but you should be okay loading it as a dll.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#195Why all the hate for GPLv3?
My personal feeling is that GPL is good for programs, but bad for libraries, as I end up having to make my whole program GPL (or GPL-compatible) if I use a GPLed library. Often I don't want to do that, and if I use a another library which has a GPL-incompatile license, then I'm stuffed.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#196Earlier 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.
The FSF takes the position that linking is derivative work; this may or may not be an accurate legal position, but it's a popular position from the licensed creator and an entity which owns a lot of software licenses under the GPL, and which is very influential with people who choose to use the GPL, so even if it is ultimately legally incorrect, the risk of litigation, whatever they outcome, from linking is going to be unacceptable to most significant users, so a GPL library is unlikely to see uptake in major software for which the creator had a significant reason for choosing a non-GPL license, whether it is permissive or proprietary.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#197One 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.
No kidding. If you want an image format to become widely adopted and standardized, GPLing the code is a pretty bad idea.
Not just an image format, everything you want to become widely adopted and standardized should refrain from using the GPL, even the FSF[1] recommends using the Apache License in this specific case.
Some libraries implement free standards that are competing against restricted
standards, such as Ogg Vorbis (which competes against MP3 audio) and WebM
(which competes against MPEG-4 video). For these projects, widespread use of
the code is vital for advancing the cause of free software, and does more
good than a copyleft on the project's code would do.
In these special situations, we recommend the Apache License 2.0.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The Mozilla Public License is GPLv3 compatible. Firefox also contains code that is under different licenses that is not GPLv3 compatible, and thus firefox is not GPLv3 compatible
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jon Sneyers is a known advocate of Free Software, I am actually glad he acts on his beliefs.
Based on how he's acted in the past, I think even Stallman would've advocated something like the MIT or BSD license for something like this -- having a patent-unencumbered alternative to formats like JPEG 2000 being used seems to be more important to a lot of Free Software people. In other words, the advantage of having widely-used file formats that are accessible to free software programs are considered greater than…
> even Stallman would've advocated something like the MIT or BSD license for something like this
Almost, Stallman (well, the FSF) advocates Apache 2:
Some libraries implement free standards that are competing against restricted
standards, such as Ogg Vorbis (which competes against MP3 audio) and WebM
(which competes against MPEG-4 video). For these projects, widespread use of
the code is vital for advancing the cause of free software, and does more
good than a copyleft on the project's code would do.
In these special situations, we recommend the Apache License 2.0.
Re: Free Lossless Image Format
#200One 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.
I think it's the most interesting because it immediately turned me off to the project. Releasing this only as GPL basically means it will NEVER be adopted en masse :-(