[Coco] Re: Re: JPEG

[Ward Griffiths]

On Tuesday 27 April 2004 06:13 pm, Roger Taylor wrote:
> At 02:59 PM 4/27/2004 -0700, you wrote:
> > > That's where the real problem is for most usage specially things
> > > like digital cameras. There is a format that should work for most
> > > browsers, PNG, which does not have a pattent, handles up to 48
> > > bit color, and has reasonable compression.
> > > http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/
>
> I wouldn't be surprised if the PNG format has a patent even though
> it's a "free" format.  I wonder how many people knew about the JPEG
> patent?  I've studied the JPEG specs and recently looked over the
> long patent, and the patent clearly describes the JPEG format.  My
> guess is that some weasle out there is waiting for the PNG format to
> become widespread, then go in for the kill.  This seems to be a
> common game, anyway.

Well, it only seems to happen once every dozen years or so.  This gives 
the PNG format a while yet.

Ghod, I feel old.  I remember when the GIF format was being hammered out 
on CompuServe as a lower bandwidth alternative to RLE.  
-- 
Ward Griffiths    wdg3rd at comcast.net    http://home.comcast.net/~wdg3rd/

And this was no disciplined march; it was a stampede--a stampede
gigantic and terrible--without order and without a goal, six million
people _unarmed_ and unprovisioned, driving headlong.  It was the
beginning of the rout of civilisation, of the massacre of mankind.
			Herbert George Wells, _The War of the Worlds_