Quite right, and that's what I was trying to get across.... may not have been clear enough. My understanding is that if I hack the GD source to include support for the new hypothetical image format XYZ, there's nothing illegal about it. However, if you own the copyright and patent rights to format XYZ and I include support without your permission, my hacked GD is then illegal because it infringes upon your intellectual property.
While I think we're both talking about and saying much the same thing, let's be very clear here to avoid confusion for the others and newbies who may read this thread. From the GD website (http://www.boutell.com/gd/manual1.8.4.html):
<b><i>Permission has been granted to copy, distribute and modify gd in any context without fee, including a commercial application, provided that this notice is present in user-accessible supporting documentation.</b></i>
This means that the owners/authors of GD have allow you to add support for any little thing your heart desires, assuming of course that you have the requisite programming skills to do so.
However Unisys, as the legal patent holder of the LZW compression routine used to create full compressed GIF images, does not grant such rights. In fact, as is unfortunately their right, they demand that software developers pay them a royalty/licensing fee for the right to use LZW in their programs and applications. Thus, unless you have the express permission of Unisys to add GIF support using LZW, it is illegal to add said support to GD.... even though it is not illegal to hack and modify GD itself.
A system is naturally the sum total of it's parts. If one part of the system is corrupt or illegal, it makes the implementation of the system corrupt or illegal... not the system itself.
geoff
