https://web.archive.org/web/20000815062122/http://burnallgifs.org/ Wayback Machine [http://burnallgifs.o][Go] 1,118 captures 13 Oct 1999 - 12 Aug 2022 May AUG Oct Previous capture 15 Next capture 1999 2000 2001 success fail About this capture COLLECTED BY Organization: Alexa Crawls Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. Collection: Alexa Crawl AUG Crawl AUG from Alexa Internet. This data is currently not publicly accessible. TIMESTAMPS loading The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20000815062122/ http://burnallgifs.org:80/ Burn all GIFs. Free the web! Burn all GIFs! Free the web! Burn all GIFs! use our PNGs Free the Web! Burn all GIFs! Bay Area Web developers march for software Burn All GIFs patent reform A project of the League for [freepatent] Europe is currently Programming Freedom. prohibiting patents on computer programmes as [png_japan] such and requires for a patent to be granted that version fran aise de ce site it has an industrial application. This gives Spotlight on GIF-free sites its members an economic advantage, protects open US Department of Defense source software all over finalizes plan to burn most the world and stimulates of its GIFs. innovation made by small companies. However, Don't flame Unisys powerful pressures are trying to make Europe Software change its wise position on software patents. Graphics freepatents.org thinks the new EU position on In the News software patents is a threat to competition, Contact Us small companies, innovation and open Burn All GIFs Day mailing source software. list archives Sign the online petition against software patents Subscribe to the Burn All in Europe. GIFs Day mailing list Legislation needs a You've burned the GIFs, now better reason than that wear the shirt. lawyers like it, and that America does it. photo: Alan Cox's USPTO logo -- Lawrence Lessig Designed by Alan Cox, sold by thinkgeek.com, proceeds support LPF. Unisys is only going after software vendors, right? Web sites with GIFs on them have nothing to Can Amazon patent web fear, right? cookies? Two words. Contributory infringement. Do we have your Please do not buy from attention now? Amazon. Amazon boycott page at the Free Software Foundation site. Unisys (blue line on chart), once a It's a completely trivial well-known computer company, holds a application of cookies, a patent on a method of data compression technology that was called LZW. Other, much better, introduced several years methods of data compression are not before Amazon filed for covered by any patent. their patent. It's even more ironic that in private LZW is used in an obsolete graphic conversation, one of the format called GIF, which many web authors of the "cookies" sites use in order to be compatible spec mentioned to me that with old web browsers. Unisys is now they considered the idea demanding that web sites pay them "too trivial to patent." To $5000 or more to use these characterize "1-Click" as an now-obsolete GIF graphics if the "invention" is a parody. -- software originally used to create the Tim O'Reilly GIFs was not covered by an appropriate Unisys license. The catch is that it appears to be Other patent reform sites difficult or impossible to get a Unisys license to use LZW in free freepatents.org: European software that complies with the Open organization devoted to Source Definition or in low-volume preventing a US-style proprietary software. gd is an example software patent crisis. of a package that can no longer support GIF because of Unisys's LZW The League for Programming licensing terms. Freedom The fact that Unisys was able to The O'Reilly Network patents patent LZW is due to a flaw in the US page is up-to-date with patent system that makes even coverage of the software pencil-and-paper calculations patent issue. patentable. You could violate some US patents just doing the story problems in a math or computer science Weather at Unisys textbook! The League for Programming Freedom is working to fix the US [weather map] patent system to harmonize it with those of other, more sensible, countries. In the meantime, Unisys's actions are perfectly legal under US law, so the only reasonable alternative to paying the "Unisys tax" on the web is to upgrade graphics from GIF to PNG format. A A study conducted by James Bessen and Eric Maskin shows that: Through a sequence of court decisions, patent protection for computer programs was significantly strengthened. We will show that, far from unleashing a flurry of new innovative activity, these stronger property rights ushered in a period of stagnant, if not declining, R&D; among those industries and firms that patented most. Didn't they already settle this? Unisys has changed their position on GIF licensing (see below) and they can change it again. Unisys does not Unisys has require frequently been licensing, or asked whether a fees to be Unisys license is paid, for required in order non-commercial, to use LZW non-profit software obtained GIF-based by downloading applications, from the Internet including those or from other for use on the sources. The on-line answer is simple. services. In all cases, a written license Concerning agreement or developers of statement signed software for by an authorized the Internet Unisys network, the representative is same principle required from applies. Unisys Unisys for all will not pursue use, sale or previous distribution of inadvertent any software infringement by (including developers so-called producing "freeware") and/or versions of hardware providing software LZW conversion products for capability (for the Internet example, prior to 1995. downloaded The company software used for does not creating/ require displaying GIF licensing, or images). fees to be paid for Unisys 1999 non-commercial, emphasis added non-profit offerings on the Internet, including "Freeware". Unisys 1995 emphasis added A very detailed article on the history of GIF is The GIF Controversy: A Software Developer's Perspective Spotlight on GIF-free sites pngart.com features 50,000 free PNG images. Fling is designed to make it impossible to track down either providers or users of information, and impossible to listen in. Annie's Artistry: Fine handmade (GIF-free) leather articles. Free Fonts at Kris' Haven This GIF-burner is constructing a pipe organ in his house, using a beautiful 1928 Wurlitzer Theater Pipe Organ Console and other parts. Bargain hunters: Check the seven most popular on-line auctions with one AuctionBeagle search. (And watch the animated tail on the PNG beagle.) Visit beautiful Carlsbad, California, USA. GIF-free scientific site of the day: The Institute of Neurobiology located at the University of Puerto Rico, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Smokey Bear says extinguish GIFs before leaving your campsite: Yosemite National Park is GIF-free. (Lose the amazon.com link though, people -- ALL software patents suck.) Best GIF-free band: Yanez is a group of "anti-nazi, anti-tax, anti-goverment, anti-political GNU fanatics." Download an MP3 of their song "GNU/Linux" recorded live in Croatia. High Tech: Andr 's 8-bit pages, featuring GeckOS/A65, the multitasking, Internet-enabled operating system for the Commodore 64. Here's another GIF-free C64 page just because Commodore 64s rule. Low Tech: Oxford City Campaign for Real Ale. Software patent reform is thirsty work. Graphics Envy: CAVE Virtual Reality System. Best new Burn All Gifs art: BurnGIF for the Mac OS. Our software is licensed. Except maybe if you use it on the web. Um, ask our lawyers. There may be some limitations of use if you are using a Jasc Software product to operate a web server, internet server or bulletin board, or if you are an on-line vendor using the software as a means to run your on-line service. If you have questions regarding this, please contact us our legal department at [ADDRESS]. Thank you for using Jasc Software products! "Unisys License Information" page at Jasc Software In other words, even if you pay for licensed software, you still need a lawyer to use GIF. US Department of Defense plans to burn (most) GIFs The U.S. Department of Defense recently approved mandatory use of PNG instead of GIF for images that require lossless compression, except for animations: For the interchange of very large still-raster images that have no geospatial context and where lossy decompression is acceptable, the mandated standard is: * JPEG File Interchange Format, Version 1.02, September 1, 1993, C-Cubed Microsystems. For the interchange of other single raster images that have no geospatial context and where lossy compression is not acceptable, the mandated standard is: * PNG (Portable Network Graphics ) Specification, W3C Recommendation REC-png.html . For the lossless interchange of raster images that have no geospatial context and where none of the above cases apply, such as the exchange of still-images that can be viewed in sequence (also referred to as animation), the mandated standard is: * Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Version 89a, 31 July 1990, CompuServe Incorporated. Source: U.S. Department of Defense Joint Technical Architecture (JTA), version 3.0, 15 Nov 1999, section 2.2.2.2.1.4.2. Register to download the cited document as a zipped PDF. Don't flame Unisys Please don't flame Unisys. Unisys has had 14 years or so to develop their position on LZW licensing, and one more flame war won't change anything. Switch to a non-patented graphics format, burn your GIFs to call attention to the fact that you're doing so, and avoid patent minefields in the future. When it comes to the web, Unisys didn't just miss the boat, they missed the harbor and the ocean. They'll miss the next big thing too. Free and open standards are winning. Win and be happy. Burn All GIFs Day is about getting out of patent problems, not about getting into flame wars. Burn All Gifs Software Use gif2png (free, Open Source software) to convert GIF images to PNG images under Linux, Unix, MS-DOS or Microsoft Windows. The gif2png distribution also includes a script, web2png, that can automatically convert an entire website. The script not only converts GIFs, it also patches references to the converted images in HTML and PHP pages. A Microsoft Windows version of gif2png is available. eMNGma is a Microsoft Windows application to create MNG animations. (Shareware) PNG/MNG Construction Set Professional is a Microsoft Windows application to create and manage PNG transparencies and MNG animations. pngcrush is an optimizer for PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files. It can be run from a commandline in an MSDOS window, or from a UNIX or LINUX commandline. Its main purpose is to reduce the size of the PNG IDAT datastream by trying various compression levels an PNG filter methods. It also can be used to remove unwanted ancillary chunks, or to add certain chunks including gAMA, tRNS, and textual chunks. Pngcrush is open source and may be used by anyone without fee. SmartSaver Pro (for Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT 4.0) does batch conversions of GIF files to PNG or JPEG. 15-day trial version available at no charge. Image-Conversion Applications with PNG Support: other conversion utilities. Applications with PNG Support: list of browsers and graphics programs that support PNG. Notes on how to configure Microsoft IIS for PNG by Mike Schinkel of vbxtras.com. Read this document if you run Microsoft IIS and PNG images on your site are visible from Microsoft Internet Explorer but not from Netscape browsers. Burn All Gifs Graphics Visit Burn All GIFs Graphical Resources for PNG graphics you can use to show support for Burn All GIFs Day. Thanks to Amy Abascal. A free "no gifs" graphic by Jon Thingvold (black "GIF", red circle with slash, 69x70 pixels) Read PNG: The Definitive Guide by Greg Roelofs to learn how to create PNGs and write applications that use the PNG format. Burn All GIFs Day in the News PNG, MNG, JNG and Mozilla M17 (Greg Roelofs, 26 June 2000) Unlike (LZW-based) GIF, in which the compression is basically deterministic--that is, you end up with pretty much the same data regardless of who does the compression--PNG's scheme leaves a lot of room for optimization. Some programs do a good job, some don't. The GIMP happens to be one of the good ones, as is pngcrush. Photoshop traditionally has been one of the not-so-good ones, although version 5.5 includes a "Save for Web" option that presumably invokes ImageReady. ImageReady 1.0 was mediocre and reportedly isn't much better in its current release (i.e., pngcrush beats it by 15% to 25%), but it is better than Photoshop's normal "Save as" option. Unisys comes out against friendship and freedom (Ditherati, 25 April 2000) "They want everything to be free and let's all be friends. But fortunately, this is not the American way." -- Mark Starr, Unisys patent counsel The Latest GIF Tiff (The Standard, 25 April 2000) "The GIF patent, as you may know, is at the end of its useful life. It expires in 2003. And there are new things out there. We're looking at the PNG format, which has better resolution and better color transmissibility and several other advantages across the board." -- Barry Myers, executive VP of AccuWeather Patent demands may spur Unisys rivals in graphics market (CNet News.com, 18 April 2000) Accuweather, which sells meteorological data to news outlets and other organizations, said in a memo to its customers on Friday that the switch to PNG will take full effect May 12, although Accuweather will continue to hold the rights to use GIFs on its own Web site. "We decided to change because it looks like things are going that way," said Brandi Say, the Accuweather customer service representative who authored the memo. Patently Absurd (New York Times, 12 March 2000) In ways that could not have been predicted even a few years ago, the patent system is in crisis. A series of unplanned mutations have transformed patents into a positive threat to the digital economy. The patent office has grown entangled in philosophical confusion of its own making; it has become a ferocious generator of litigation; and many technologists believe that it has begun to choke the very innovation it was meant to nourish. O' Reilly Network Patents Devcenter Current news articles on the software patent crisis. The Netwebly Guide to the Internet (10 February 2000) The Unisys plan could not have had worse timing. The end result will probably be the extinction of what was the most popular graphics format on the web. Burn All Gifs: An Interview With Don Marti (ahref.com, 22 December 1999) The Burn All Gifs website advocates, among other things, converting all GIFs to a newer, more advanced, format - PNGs. In this interview, Don talks a bit about the background of the Burn All Gifs movement, and about software patents in general. Fugitive From Justice (Lincoln Stein's "Webmaster's Domain" column in WebTechniques, December 1999) Unisys' network services division distributes a remote network management tool that uses GD.pm to display network status graphics. GD.pm, of course, uses libgd, which in turn uses an unlicensed version of the LZW encoder. Perhaps Unisys should negotiate some site-licensing terms with itself? GIF Tiff (Business 2.0, December 1999) "I saw a huge surge of interest in PNG at the end of August when the [Unisys licensing] story first broke," says Greg Roelofs, a member of the PNG developers group and author of PNG: The Definitive Guide. "Now a big groundswell of user interest - in the form of direct feedback to software vendors - would probably do the most good." Are the days of GIF numbered? (IT@AsiaOne) Apparently, if you store and distribute GIF files that were created by unlicensed copy of LZW software on the Internet, you are also guilty of "contributory infringement". Unisys's solution to this is by introducing a "lower-cost, one-time license fee" of US$5,000. But that is only for starters. If your Web site carries third-party banner ads, has password-protected areas or conducts electronic commerce, you'll have to bargain for your own license with Unisys and that is definitely not going to be US$5,000 only. Think about this: If Unisys get its way, what will be next? Patents for HTML and HTTP? What will Internet be if we are to 'degrade' to that stage? So, are you ready to burn your GIFs now? A GIF Horse with Nothing But Mouth (Boardwatch, November 1999) Nobody needs to pay for the privilege of using outdated, patented .gif technology when there are better, free alternatives. Even if you know for sure that all of your .gif files were created by a Unisys-licensed program, you should convert your images to jpeg format, or use the new .png format. Chris DiBona's Burn All GIFs Day photos sendmail.net's Burn All GIFs Day photos Aus f r GIFs? (tecChannel, 17 November 1999) Mike Burns, GIF Mourns (Chimp News Network, 8 November 1999) Real fire photos from Burn All GIFs Day in Canada! Time to liberate your website - burn your GIFs (Boot, 5 November 1999) In 1995, Unisys made their position clear. They were looking to extract licence fees from software developers who supported LZW compression, but had no particular gripe with the end users. "The company [Unisys] does not require licensing, or fees to be paid for non-commercial, non-profit offerings on the internet, including 'Freeware'," declares a Unisys press release dated January 10, 1995. However, if you try to access this document on the Unisys website, you may be in for a surprise. It now states that: "The typical Unisys licence for standalone software does NOT permit copying, modification, resale, use on a server or in a network, or use for internet/ intranet/extranet or website operation." The document had been updated earlier this year to reflect "changes in the use and marketing of GIF and other LZW-based products", while still carrying the date of the orginal press release. Unisys Heats Up Over GIFs (PC World News, 5 November 1999) Burn all GIFs? (Borland Developer News, 5 November 1999) Developer News spoke to Oliver Picher, spokesman for Unisys. Picher is in charge of fielding questions about the LZW patent and is a friendly fellow who's clearly fascinated with the ramifications of patents in the real world. We posed a question to him: "Let's say I have a Web site and someone sends me a file that was compressed using an unlicensed copy of the LZW algorithm -- a GIF for example -- and all I do is allow others to download that file from my site. In other words, I neither compress nor decompress the file; I simply make it available. Do I need a license from Unisys?" Picher laughed, "Great question!" He explained that such an action is considered "contributory infringement" because you're helping an infringer. He went on to downplay the official Unisys position by observing, "If you ask a highway patrolman if you can speed he'll say no, even though the odds are you won't get caught." Webmasters Push for Switch from GIF (InternetNews.com, 5 November 1999) Organizers have started a campaign against the fee by creating banner ads urging Webmasters to eliminate GIFs from their sites and using word-of-mouth to spread the word against Unisys. Some protesters are going so far as to physically burn paper copies of GIF files outside Unisys' California office Friday. Protest organizers said the issue is about open standards, not specifically the GIF format, which is slowly being replaced by other image formats such as the Joint Photographic Experts Group, or JPEG, and Portable Network Graphics, otherwise known as PNG files. Stor bojkott mot gif (ComputerSweden, 4 November 1999) Das Ende der GIFs? (Spiegel Online, 4 November 1999) Am Freitag "feiert" die Open-Source-Gemeinde des Internet den "Burn all GIFs Day". Nicht, weil die Surfer plotzlich ihre Liebe zu bildlosen Textwusten entdeckt hatten, sondern weil Patenthalter Unisys fur die Nutzung von GIFs Geld sehen will. Hey Ho, GIFs Must Go! (Atlantic Unbound, 3 November 1999) Unfortunately, the Patent Office has had few examiners who knew anything about software. Incredibly, it has awarded patents to such simple processes as putting two windows on a screen, putting a cursor in a window in a way that doesn't erase the data beneath, and recalculating the entries in a spreadsheet -- even though all of these processes were developed by others years before the patent holders "invented" them and are sufficiently obvious to be implemented in a few lines of code. GIF Economy: A Cautionary Tale (sendmail.net, 2 November 1999) With the US Patent and Trademark Office handing out patents hand over fist, a minefield is being sown that threatens anyone who develops software, with the peril inversely proportional to the developer's clout (translation: access to lawyers and vast heaps of cash). That problem's made worse by the PTO's uncertainty about how prior art (the premise that you can't patent what's already been done) should be applied to computer programs. Their way of dealing with that, apparently, is to give a patent to everyone who asks, then let the courts sort it out - an approach that has corporate legal departments grinning ear to ear, knowing as they do that it's a rare developer who can afford (or stomach) more than 45 minutes of full-on litigation, even though they might ultimately prevail. Burn All GIFs Day (Windows Magazine, 2 November 1999) On November 5, webmasters all over the world will convert their sites to eliminate all GIFs. Please join this effort and show Unisys that the net will not tolerate its sleazy attempt at a $5000-per-site shakedown based on the LZW patent By converting your site on or before November 5th, you will also send a message to hostile software patent-holders that the net will actively resist future attempts to torpedo open-source software with "submarine patents". Hey, Unisys: Time To Burn All Gifs (Byte.com, 8 October 1999) In reality, CompuServe was being squeezed through UniSys, which developed the compression technology used in GIFs, and the target of the royalty push was software developers that supported GIF files. So Adobe, Corel, Macromedia, and other vendors coughed up the license fee for the GIF compression, called LZW. Now it's happening again; only this time, UniSys is taking the direct role and CompuServe is on the sidelines. UniSys is asking Web sites that used graphics programs that don't have an LZW compression license to create their GIFs, TIFF-LZW and PDF-LZW files to pay a one-time license fee, or remove the GIFs. The fast track to GIF irrelevancy (ZDNet, 13 September 1999) Unisys is as clueless about free software concepts as any computer company I've ever come across, and they ought to get a taste of what the information technology managers of tomorrow think of them today. But beyond words, the best way to deal with the situation is to move swiftly to make GIFs -- and Unisys -- irrelevant. Unisys demands $5k licence fee for use of GIFs (The Register, 9 September 1999) The company doesn't however make it clear either how you're supposed to identify whether or not your GIF is hot, or how it proposes to determine this in order to collect its fees. Rather than generating money for the company, the net effect is more likely to be to expose it to widespread loathing, and to trigger widespread abandonment of formats using LZW.The move has already generated the aptly-named burnallgifs.org Open Source Graphics With PNG (LinuxWorld, 9 September 1999) My guess is that, since I use the GIMP for image creation and modification and then display the images thus modified on my Web site, it probably does mean me. That's why my Web site is now becoming GIF-free. All new images created for my site are saved using the PNG format. I've had a few complaints from visitors running older versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator because they can't view them, but for the most part, the change has been -- dare I say it? -- transparent to the users. The Unisys Corporation - A Ship of Fools (metromilwaukee.com, 9 September 1999) In closing, I do suggest we all write the software developers whose products we use and tell them we do not wish them to pay Unisys. Tell them, "Do not pay Unisys one stinking dime"! Tell them we support the removal of the GIF file from their programs and help them understand that we understand that we don't need no stinking GIF file format! Tell them we have all seen the light and will break our nasty habit of using the GIF file format just because it was the quick and easy thing to do. Tell them we realize that it is now as quick and as easy and in fact preferred for all of us to save our images using the PNG file format as it provides all of the benefits that the GIF file format "used to provide" and more, because the PNG file format is in the public domain and can be used by all without paying additional licensing fees. MacInTouch Reader Reports (MacInTouch, 31 August-2 September 1999) (This is a selection of comments from professional graphic artists and webmasters about the Unisys patent issue. Very worthwhile reading.) I'm using PNG format graphics extensively in a series of commercial CD ROMs. We almost used GIF format, but when the licensing issue first came up, we decided at that point we didn't want to get involved with it. The public domain PNG code works VERY nicely and the graphics are even slightly smaller than GIF with the same quality. GIF Unisys the Boot (webdeveloper.com, 31 August 1999) The latest problem is that Unisys, a formerly large computer company, owns the rights to the LZW compression patent which covers things like TIFF and GIF image formats. If your graphic files are GIFs, and they were created with a program whose creator did not pay a license fee to Unisys, Unisys will be demanding a $5000 license fee from you. Unisys Not Suing (most) Webmasters for Using GIFs (slashdot.org, 31 August 1999) If you use GIF graphics created with certain freeware programs, and your chosen program uses LZW compression to create GIFs without a license to use it, you may be violating a Unisys patent. How would Unisys know what software you used to create a particular GIF? Starr says they'll ask you, and, he says, "...assuming we made an inquiry, we would expect a Web site operator to tell us what he used." Unisys wants $5000 if you use .gifs (UGeek Daily Geek News, 31 August 1999) Brennen GIF-Grafiken? (Linux BBS, 30 August 1999) LZW Compression Issues (Macintosh News Network, 30 August 1999) You will never believe this but Unisys is trying to enforce their patent on the GIF/LZW file format. They are requiring a $5000 fee from websites that use the GIF file format for any image. This is regardless of whether the software used to create the image is already licensed. This may sound a bit unbelievable but just check out the detail at the Unisys web site. We for one will be converting our images over to JPEG or PNG in the next few days to protest this type of ridiculous double taxation by such a lame company. Unisys Is At It Again! (BrowserWatch, 30 August 1999) ...the SYSOPS (the people who ran the BBS's) en mass converted each and every .arc file they had to the new .zip format! It was an amazing thing really. It wasn't 'planned', it just happened. Within six months (or less) every major BBS in the world had killed .arc! Could we see the same thing happen again? I think so! Can you say .png? Don't Panic About GIFs (evolt.org, 29 August 1999) It has been pointed out to me by Slashdot user JoeBuck (thanks for the tip) that the link to the Unisys information stating that free software products are not required to pay a royalty is actually old information. Apparently, Unisys are now requiring payment from all software manufacturers, putting the likes of The Gimp in a difficult position. Do they continue to supply their software for free, but fork out the money for a license for LZW compression, or do they drop the gif format from their products? This is perhaps the most heinous part of this whole affair and it remains to be seen how the Open Source community will react. Unisys Demanding License Fees (About.com, 29 August 1999) Marti and other knowledgeable webbies say the only reasonable alternative to paying the "Unisys tax" on the web is to upgrade graphics from GIF to PNG format. The only problem with converting is that some older browsers do not support PNG. Unisys gets greedy (Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource) Unisys is a Bunch of Retards (Pigdog Journal, 26 August 1999) Eventually, with this pressure, EVERYONE is going to ditch GIF in favor of PNG. Web folks will stop asking image software vendors to support GIFs, and the software guys won't want to pay the license fees so they'll just stop supporting GIF. Then even people who WANT GIF won't be able to get it. GIFs will disappear! The Coming Software Patent Crisis: Can Linux Survive? (Linux Journal, 10 August 1999) As you read the list of "infringements", you can't help laughing, scared as you are. The so-called infringements include procedures which programmers have used for years--maybe decades. Examples? Your program includes a "Save As" command that enables users to save a file with a different name. It accesses information from a central server. You used different colors to differentiate items in a list. You can't believe what you're reading. These are patentable? The GIF Controversy: A Software Developer's Perspective "When I reminded [Unisys] of the many freeware products that are out there using the GIF format, [Unisys] said that - and this is a quote - 'just because there are thieves out there doesn't mean that you can act like a thief'." "For the second time in two years we had to change our plans. I am furious. [Three years ago] CompuServe and Unisys knew about the patent, and did not inform the community, leaving me and others waste our time writing this software. Now the same is happening again: I took decisions last year, based on the public 'clarifications' by Unisys, and now they are just rewriting history as if they never said those things. This feels like Orwell's 1984." James S. Huggins' Refrigerator Door: Burn All GIFs links to more articles on the GIF patent problem and on software patents in general. Contact us Don Marti Publicity Director, Silicon Valley Linux Users Group dmarti@zgp.org 650-962-9601 Nick Moffitt Editor, Microsoft Windows Refund Newsletter GNU and Linux professional based in San Francisco nick@zork.net Evan Prodromou Web Activist evangelo@pigdog.org Chris DiBona Editor, Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution chris@dibona.com 408-205-6306 Amy Abascal Web Design Officer, Silicon Valley Linux Users Group amy@iconoclast.net 408-542-5741 Eric S. Raymond President, Open Source Initiative esr@thyrsus.com 610-296-5718