ghost@aladdin.com (L. Peter Deutsch) (01/30/91)
As some of you probably know, Adobe's Level 2 PostScript
specification includes facilities for data compression and
decompression according to the LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) method. I
would like to provide these facilities in Ghostscript.
Unfortunately, this method is claimed to be the subject of two
different patents, one by Unisys (which Adobe mentions in the new Red
& White Book, and has licensed) and one by IBM (which is claimed to
predate the Unisys patent by a week, but which is not mentioned in
the R & W Book). Because of this, I am being forced to waste
otherwise productive time digging up addresses of patent departments,
writing to them, trying to figure out for myself which patent
applies, etc. Furthermore, I may be required to pay a substantial
fee to license these questionable patents. I am told, for example,
that the authors of PK-ZIP, one of the most popular PC compression
utilities, had to pay a fee of $10,000 for use of the LZW method.
This is completely out of the question for me, since I'm not making
any money from Ghostscript: if the fee is more than $100 or so, or if
the licensing terms preclude free distribution of Ghostscript,
Ghostscript will simply not include LZW coding, but will include some
freely available compression method (such as the Y coding method
posted to gnu.misc.discuss recently) instead.
Adobe's documentation also says that all ISVs who want to use LZW
compression may be required to license it from Unisys (or IBM,
depending on who you believe). This may mean you, if you are writing
software that takes advantage of these facilities in Level 2
PostScript. (I don't know the law about how far a piece of software
can get distributed before you have to license patents that may
apply: in theory, I guess you have to license even if no one but you
ever sees it.)
This is only the tip of a very large iceberg for the software
industry. I hope you will think carefully before writing programs
that use patented facilities, because the costs to you and to others
may be much higher than you might think.
If you agree with me that software patents have a net harmful effect
on the industry, there are things you can do, and now is the time to
do them. I don't think comp.lang.postscript is the place to continue
this discussion, so follow up to gnu.misc.discuss.
L. Peter Deutsch :: Aladdin Enterprises :: P.O. box 60264, Palo Alto, CA 94306
ghost@aladdin.com ; {uunet,sun,decwrl}!parcplace!aladdin!ghost ; (415)329-0264
>>>>>> New phone # after 2/3/91: (415)322-0103 <<<<<<
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