On Wed, Aug 25, 1999 at 03:06:32PM -0700, Ben Gertzfield wrote:
> Well, UNISYS is up to it again. They want $5,000 (count 'em: five
> THOUSAND DOLLARS) from *every* web site that uses GIFs, TIFFs, or PDF
> files with LZW compression.
>
> And that $5,000 only covers two servers at your site, so you'd better
> stock up on those licenses now!
>
> http://corp2.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzw-license.html
Well this thread probably can be summed up in one line:
What morons these Unisys people be! They've lost their minds.
A $5K license to use files in a given format? That's directly analogous
to M$ saying that anybody distributing Word .doc's must pay them a fee.
Or Farenhaufer saying that anyone who has a .mp3 on their system must pay,
or any other example of blatant bullshit we would probably start a
donation fund to fight this in the courts.
I personally have NO INTENTION to accept this as legally binding because
it legally cannot be. They can demand you pay for software under current
practice but this is a whole new ballgame all together. I honestly
believe this should be fought, in the courts if necessary. We can't
afford to allow this sort of abuse to go unchallenged.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> Debian GNU/Linux developer
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<Knghtbrd> Feanor - license issues are important. If we don't watch our
arses now, someone's gonna come up and bite us later...
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