Ben Gertzfield wrote: > I'm quite sure we have cryptographic software in main that is > patent-encumbered and illegal for other reasons in many non-US countries > worldwide. Isn't this exactly the same thing? It's been rehashed many > times.
What's worse, GIF and JPEG are now essentially in the same boat. For both image formats, there are companies that claim that they have successfully collected royalties by licensing patents these formats (or processing implementations) infringe. Plugin support in Mozilla is just another example of an idea that doesn't appear to be in the public domain.
