Re: Format of SHK files

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On 2 Jun 1999 13:41:56 -0500, shack@onyx.southwind.net (Randy
Shackelford) wrote:

>In article <375566ba.2225214@news>, Jeff Blakeney <CUTblakeney@home.com> wrote:
>
>>>LZW should sound familiar.  It is the compression format of GIF.
>>
>>And Unisys owns the patent on the LZW compression method so any
>>programmer/company that uses it in a piece of software that is to be
>>sold, needs to pay Unisys a license fee.  However, if the product is
>>freeware or public domain, there is no fee.
>>
>>That's is how I remember it, at least.  I've been wrong before.  :)
>
>Yep I heard that story once. I suspect that it's the how come that GS Shrinkit
>came out as freeware as there was talk originally that it'd cost.

I probably still have the Unisys press release that went out ages ago
somewhere in my message archives.  If anyone is interested I could
check to see if I do and I could e-mail it to anyone who is
interested.

However, it would probably be easier to go to http://www.unisys.com
and check for the info there.  I just did that and found out something
interesting.  Even freeware needs to get a license from Unisys.  They
may not charge anything for the license but apparently to legally
distribute any software you create that uses LZW, you need to get a
license from Unisys.

You can read about it at:

     http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwfaq.html

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