ernest@pegasus.dsg.tandem.com (Ernest Hua) (05/29/91)
Given the section in the GIF specifications on licensing, aren't "xgif" and
"xv" (and all other programs that can read and/or write GIF format that do not
print some acknowledgement of Compuserve's SM to the screen) in violation of
this licensing agreement?
1. If I were to write an X application with an ability to read GIF file
format(s), am I really required to print an acknowledgement?
2. If so, to which screen? Is it sufficient to do a printf() (in which case,
a window manager menu start up will likely not show this message at all)?
This is serious business, and it appears that ...
A. Compuserve has not revised their licensing agreement to be specific
enough about how to comply.
B. Not too many people are concerned about compliance.
--
Ernest Hua, Associate Design Engineer ernest@tandem.com
Tandem Computers, 19333 Vallco Parkway, Cupertino, CA 95014 408-285-5580adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu (Adrian J Ho) (05/29/91)
In article <1991May28.185838.5409@tandem.com> ernest@pegasus.dsg.tandem.com (Ernest Hua) writes: >Given the section in the GIF specifications on licensing, aren't "xgif" and >"xv" (and all other programs that can read and/or write GIF format that do not >print some acknowledgement of Compuserve's SM to the screen) in violation of >this licensing agreement? Depends. Here's the relevant section from the GIF89 spec document: =============================================================================== CompuServe Incorporated hereby grants a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license for the use of the Graphics Interchange Format(sm) in computer software; computer software utilizing GIF(sm) must acknowledge ownership of the Graphics Interchange Format and its Service Mark by CompuServe Incorporated, in User and Technical Documentation. Computer software utilizing GIF, which is distributed or may be distributed without User or Technical Documentation must display to the screen or printer a message acknowledging ownership of the Graphics Interchange Format and the Service Mark by CompuServe Incorporated; in this case, the acknowledgement may be displayed in an opening screen or leading banner, or a closing screen or trailing banner. A message such as the following may be used: "The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated." =============================================================================== The following comments are all based on the above passage: >1. If I were to write an X application with an ability to read GIF file >format(s), am I really required to print an acknowledgement? No. If you distribute your application with documentation (and I hope you do 8-), then including the quoted paragraph in your documentation is sufficient. >2. If so, to which screen? Is it sufficient to do a printf() (in which case, >a window manager menu start up will likely not show this message at all)? Under such circumstances, the title screen of your application would be the place (by convention) to put the acknowledgement (after all, you _did_ say it was X-based). >This is serious business, and it appears that ... > > A. Compuserve has not revised their licensing agreement to be specific > enough about how to comply. Yes and no. Yes, they spelt out the method of compliance pretty clearly. No, despite their attention to detail, there are a couple of gray areas that they either (a) overlooked (case 1 below), or (b) didn't anticipate (case 2 below). > B. Not too many people are concerned about compliance. It's more likely that very few people are _aware_ that there's something to comply with. Hopefully, we all know better now. Here are a couple of sticky issues for everyone to think about: 1) The "Licensing" passage I extracted above does _not_ appear in the GIF87 document. Does that indicate that we are free to use the older file format without acknowledging its creator, or does the above licensing agreement apply retroactively to all previous incarnations of the file format? (I'm inclined to believe the latter, since the agreement mentions "GIF" without mentioning a specific version, and the two file formats aren't very different at first glance.) 2) Does source code count as "technical documentation"? This is especially sticky, since most GIF viewers and other related programs use the read/write code developed by only a handful of people. If source code counts as documentation, then the authors of the read/write code can simply include a comment in their source files containing the acknowledgement paragraph, the GIF program authors can snarf the "new" code for use in their own programs, without having to include the acknowledgement individually. (This, of course, applies only to source distributions. I don't believe the people who maintain the CompuServe archives made it clear to upper management and/or company lawyers that there exist such things as source-only distributions, hence the current confusion.) Oh, and to answer the original question: The XV viewer falls in a gray area with respect to compliance, since the author (John Bradley) includes the entire GIF87 spec file as part of his documentation, which, as I pointed out in case 1, does _not_ contain the licensing agreement but may not be covered by it (John, perhaps you'd like to comment on this). I don't use XGIF, so perhaps someone who does could follow up to this article. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adrian Ho, EECS (pronounced "eeks!") Dept. Phone: (415) 642-5563 UC Berkeley adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu