[Freegis-list] Re: ECW and MrSID and JPEG2K

[Roger Bedell]

After reading some posts, it looks like this is a hot topic with the
JPEG2000 people as well. Submarine patents, etc. However, since the
Unisys burn with GIF, everyone knows no developer in their right mind
would touch a still image format that has patents on it. However, GIS
people obviously have no such compunction ie, ErMapper, MrSID etc. are
the defacto GIS standards for compressed imagery - should we stand by
and take this? 

BTW, when do the MrSID patents expire anyway?

I think JPEG2K has a better chance than these to become open source
given the pressures on the standard committee to not become another GIF.

Roger Bedell, President, Sylvan Ascent Inc.
roger at sylvanmaps.com
www.sylvanmaps.com
www.topodepot.com
505-758-7712


-----Original Message-----
From: freegis-list-admin at intevation.de
[mailto:freegis-list-admin at intevation.de] On Behalf Of Bernhard Reiter
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2002 1:43 PM
To: freegis-list at intevation.de
Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: ECW and MrSID and JPEG2K

On Tue, Jun 18, 2002 at 01:30:11PM -0600, Roger Bedell wrote:
> Both Lizardtech (MrSID) and ErMapper have patents on their compression
> technology. MrSIDs patents were from LANL, ErMapper did their own.
They
> both use Wavelet compression technology. Another technology that no
one
> uses (but should!) is Jpeg2000 which is an open format using wavelet
> compression. I've done some trials using it which show similar
> compression results to the others. There are some open source
> implementations of Jpeg2K as well.

I've heard that jpeg2000 is also patent encumbered.
	http://www.advogato.org/article/327.html

This would mean unless the patent is licensed to everybody
unlimited without royalties (basically completely rendering the
patent useless) Free Software implementations cannot exist.

You always would have restriction on the freedom to use the software
for all purposes.

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