Alessandro Coppo <a.c### [at] iolit> wrote in message
news:3a79f556@news.povray.org...
> The problem is that UNISYS did not enforce the patent in order to make GIF
a
> widespread format and then... they started asking the "insurance" or
else...
> Would you like the POVRay team to jump up and tell that everybody use has
> ever used POV must pay them for their past, present and future usage (and
> having a legal team to enforce their will)?

As I stated, "I will not defend Unisys' questionable implementation of their
proprietary
rights."   Under United States law, if patent rights are not enforced for a
sufficient period, they can be jeopardized.  This principle arises from
precisely the issue you cite, the calculated seduction of widespread usage
followed by an attemp to extract a penalty.  So far as I know, however, law
in this area in not objective and explicit, but (to employ a contradiction)
a 'fuzzy standard'  decided on a case-by-case basis.

Clearly 10 weeks lax defense as a standard is too short, 10 years is too
long.  It's a judgment call, and the judgment in this case (you can be sure
Corel argued these points) is smelly to me too.  But honest people can
differ, and I'm unwilling to call Unisys' actions extortion.

To my thinking, property is property.  I don't believe that because you
decline to chase people off your 5 hectare Tyrolian parcel for 10 years that
any 'squatters' rights should inure to them, that the property should no
longer be yours.

The answer is:  Pay the rent or move.

>
> Solutions:
> 1) I hate animations: even with 56K modem they are sloooow to load. The
> solution? stop loading the file and visit another web site ;-);

Smarty!  :-)    That's no solution.    If I didn't think they were useful I
wouldn't be having this conversation.

As for download speed, in a few years DSL will be dominant in the US.  Of
course, in a two years the LZW patents will expire.  :-)

> 2) nowadays all browsers support .PNGs. Use JPEGs for lossy compression
and
> .PNG for lossless. By the way, JPEG2000 is rumored to be a 2-level
standard,
> with the lowest level (and low quality) free and the upper one with
> royalties.

Interesting... will have to look into that.

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