Free Lossless Image Format • Hacker News Board

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#341

Post by setpatchaddress » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

kosievdmerwe wrote: post #270

thaumasiotes wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WARNING: FLIF is a work in progress. The format is not finalized yet. Any small or large change in the algorithm will most likely mean that FLIF files encoded with an older version will no longer be correctly decoded by a newer version. Keep this in mind. This seems so... avoidable. Maybe the FLIF format could include a version number declaration?

This makes sense for versions after the format gets finalized. If they do it for pre-finalization versions, then they (and other implementations) will have to keep supporting them, which probably doesn't make sense considering how small the corpus of images in this format likely is.

No, they can just reject prerelease versions without attempting to decode them, which is much more elegant (and safer).

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#342

Post by bloody_pretzels » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:56 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #333

bloody_pretzels wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not quite right. Everything that touches the GPL code has to become GPL, period. GPL compatibility only exists in one direction. A license is compatible if it is relicensable as GPL, the GPL itself isn't compatible with anything. Rant: I really want to like the GPL, but this requirement is downright hostile towards other open source licenses. And in my opinion it's not even necessary for the GPL's mission. Sur…

What you are describing in the rant is how GPL works, so surely there must be some misunderstanding here. If you use a GPLv3 library, your own additions to it can be GPLv3 or any compatible license. It can be mit, apache, BSD, mpl, CC-anything so long it allow commercial use, and almost any of the free and open source licenses. The entire thing to do not need to be GPL and in large projects its commonly not.

GPLv3 Section 5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.

> You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

> c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

It really does not work like you would want it to. Technically, you only add the GPL, so the work will then be licensed under both licenses at once. But the GPL is so restrictive that this doesn't make much difference in practice beyond maybe retaining the original license text.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#343

Post by jonsneyers » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

anentropic wrote: post #336

am I the only one who doesn't understand the horizontal axis on their graphs: "Images sorted on compression ratio"? what does it mean that the FLIF lines suddenly get worse than PNG over on the right-hand side?

For each algorithm, the images are sorted from best (on the left) to worst (on the right). So if you look at the middle region of the graph, you see how they behave on "median" images.

Another way to view the graph is: the area under the curve corresponds to the total disk space needed to store a large corpus of images in the given format. So obviously lower is better.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#344

Post by belorn » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

bloody_pretzels wrote: post #342

belorn wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing in the rant is how GPL works, so surely there must be some misunderstanding here. If you use a GPLv3 library, your own additions to it can be GPLv3 or any compatible license. It can be mit, apache, BSD, mpl, CC-anything so long it allow commercial use, and almost any of the free and open source licenses. The entire thing to do not need to be GPL and in large projects its commonly not.

GPLv3 Section 5. Conveying Modified Source Versions. > You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: > c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along…

There is no form of maybe in it. People who don't retain the original license text are committing copyright infringement.

The license talks about when the the entire work is being distributed. Individual parts licensed under a different license can be used in other works under completely different licenses and the GPL do not impact such use.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#345

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 10:27 PM UTC

paxcoder wrote: post #311

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, GPLv3 AND LGPLv3 are the kiss of death for any corporate use. The patent clause in GPLv3 makes it legally impossible [1] to be used by any corporation that licenses patents; it's a completely broken clause, and GPLv3 should be banished. Without a BSD/MIT/ASL2 license as an option, you'll never see this in Internet Explorer or Chrome. Probably not even Firefox. [1] Companies license patents in bulk from other co…

You are wrong, and a drama queen. The only thing (L)GPLv3 patent clause obliges propagators to do (ie not mere users; not even mere modifiers) is to grant their users licenses to applicable patents which they own . The permissive Apache license v2 demands from contributors the very same. It is the software patents that should be "banished", not freedom preserving licenses. TL;DR: (L)GPLv3 prevents patent trolling thr…

You're not a lawyer. Lawyers at big companies accept Apache's demands and reject categorically GPLv3's.

Doesn't matter what you or I think of software patents (yes, they should be banned). Doesn't matter what you or I think GPLv3 says.

The lawyers at big companies see it as a problem, so it's a problem. End of discussion. No drama required; it's just the fact that big companies avoid using anything cursed with GPLv3.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#346

Post by bloody_pretzels » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #344

bloody_pretzels wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPLv3 Section 5. Conveying Modified Source Versions. > You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions: > c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along…

There is no form of maybe in it. People who don't retain the original license text are committing copyright infringement. The license talks about when the the entire work is being distributed. Individual parts licensed under a different license can be used in other works under completely different licenses and the GPL do not impact such use.

I'm not clear on what you are trying to say. Naturally, the GPL only applies when distributing GPL'd code, not when it's used solely privately. The license clearly states that all parts of the "work based on the Program" (anything derived from GPL code) have to be licensed under GPL. The FSF has always asserted that a derived work includes anything that statically or dynamically links to GPL'd code, although the term was controversial and v3 now mentions linking explicitly. So, when the section above talks about "the whole of the work and all its parts", that includes files that are by themselves not GPL'd. These have to be distributed under GPL as well if you want to include them.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#347

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 10:47 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #326

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, GPLv3 AND LGPLv3 are the kiss of death for any corporate use. The patent clause in GPLv3 makes it legally impossible [1] to be used by any corporation that licenses patents; it's a completely broken clause, and GPLv3 should be banished. Without a BSD/MIT/ASL2 license as an option, you'll never see this in Internet Explorer or Chrome. Probably not even Firefox. [1] Companies license patents in bulk from other co…

Someone will have to call up Blizzard and tell them they have had the kiss of death when using LGPLv3 libraries in Starcraft 2. Without patents to do xml parsing or image handling, how can a game like that ever be sold with commercial success? The game only sold 5 million copies, and an other million for the expansion, so that can't possible have earned revenue for the company to support their employees and investors…

Maybe Blizzard is paying patent trolls or otherwise buying patent protection for something stupid like XML parsing that should never have been awarded a patent; a lot of companies do, since it's cheaper than fighting. But there are tons of library options to do XML parsing and image handling that don't involve (L)GPLv3. Can't imagine why they WOULD use it.

If they are using LGPLv3 libraries, then presumably their lawyers are OK with it, or they failed to run it past legal. Regardless, it's completely irrelevant to my point what Blizzard uses or doesn't use.

If you want to see a lossless compression format on the Web, you need the format to be picked up by, at a minimum, Google and Microsoft, the owners of the two top browsers in the world today.

Firefox would also be important, but would certainly follow if Google and Microsoft stepped up to support it. So really it only matters what Google and Microsoft think. If it's a license that they can freely use, then there's a chance it becomes a new Web standard. If it's only available LGPLv3, then Microsoft and Google would need to buy LGPLv3 exceptions in order to use it. A much bigger barrier to entry, and at least Google might object based on the concept that Web standards should be open. Mozilla would certainly resist if they weren't open -- though they eventually caved on H.264.

If you want to see adoption where it counts, you need cooperation from the companies behind the browsers with the market share.

No one is expecting Starcraft 2 to be the next big Web plug-in, so it's irrelevant to the product that they have LGPLv3 code in it (if they do). And if they do, Blizzard better hope that their lawyers are right in their interpretation of GPLv3, and that no one sues them hoping to take home a share of the profits you've pointed out that they are rolling in by forcing them to buy a license to get around the GPLv3 restrictions that they may or may not be violating. That's an expensive lawsuit even if they win.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#348

Post by Aldo_MX » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 12:42 AM UTC

bloody_pretzels wrote: post #319

Aldo_MX wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Note that the Apache License isn't compatible with GPLv2. If you don't make use of any patents use BSD/MIT/ISC instead. Sadly there isn't a real alternative permissive license with a patent clause. There is a license called COIL[1], but it hasn't seen much adoption yet. [1] http://coil.apotheon.org/

Nothing that a dual license GPL/APL wouldn't solve.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#349

Post by paxcoder » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 1:14 AM UTC

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #345

paxcoder wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong, and a drama queen. The only thing (L)GPLv3 patent clause obliges propagators to do (ie not mere users; not even mere modifiers) is to grant their users licenses to applicable patents which they own . The permissive Apache license v2 demands from contributors the very same. It is the software patents that should be "banished", not freedom preserving licenses. TL;DR: (L)GPLv3 prevents patent trolling thr…

You're not a lawyer. Lawyers at big companies accept Apache's demands and reject categorically GPLv3's. Doesn't matter what you or I think of software patents (yes, they should be banned). Doesn't matter what you or I think GPLv3 says. The lawyers at big companies see it as a problem, so it's a problem. End of discussion. No drama required; it's just the fact that big companies avoid using anything cursed with GPLv3.

Unlike you, I have at least taken the time to read the relevant license parts before discussing them.

Note that what you've argued before was very different from what you're saying now. You've narrowed the scope of the discussion (leaving out LGPL), but also its very nature ("legally impossible [1]", eh?).

Anyway, companies do use software licensed under both licenses, and even incorporate them into their services - hence the need for AGPL. Maybe others wouldn't see GPLv3 as that much of a problem if people didn't spread FUD about its supposed "curse" ("no drama required" but you couldn't help it, huh?). And if they didn't defend harmful practices, like Linus does tivoisation.

But mostly what companies avoid is copyleft, because it mandates reciprocity and prevents leeching the community. For projects such as these, LGPL is an acceptable compromise. The only valid argument against it is that apps under incompatible licenses will not be able to use it where dynamic linking is barred, and such is the requirement for apps in the Apple's store. However, in this particular case, that wouldn't be a problem either if the platform itself provided a decoder, like iOS does for PNGs.

Re: Free Lossless Image Format

#350

Post by belorn » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 1:26 AM UTC

bloody_pretzels wrote: post #346

belorn wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no form of maybe in it. People who don't retain the original license text are committing copyright infringement. The license talks about when the the entire work is being distributed. Individual parts licensed under a different license can be used in other works under completely different licenses and the GPL do not impact such use.

I'm not clear on what you are trying to say. Naturally, the GPL only applies when distributing GPL'd code, not when it's used solely privately. The license clearly states that all parts of the "work based on the Program" (anything derived from GPL code) have to be licensed under GPL. The FSF has always asserted that a derived work includes anything that statically or dynamically links to GPL'd code, although the term…

The distributor must apply the license to the entire work, but individual parts can always be licensed under different license.

Say for example that you created some GCC code and put that under MIT. When distributing GCC, GCC as the "entire work" will be GPLv3 which also then apply to the MIT part. However, the MIT license will also apply to that part, must be kept in every copy, and you could take that MIT part and put that into LLVM and GPLv3 would not suddenly impact LLVM.

When modifying a GPLv3 project, your own additions can always be any GPLv3 compatible license (as I stated above). In most cases that would not make much sense but in a few cases, say in a compiler, it might make sense if you want to use that code in several project with different or even proprietary licenses. Nothing in GPLv3 prevents this.