Re: [AD] GIF patent / support

[Chris <kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Jones wrote:
> I think one of Allegro's strengths is that it's a totally independant
> library that doesn't require any external DLL's or libs in order to work.
> Changing this would not be a good thing, IMO.

My method, if we could get it to work somehow, wouldn't require any 
external DLLs of libs, either. They would be optional (checked at run 
time if the libs aren't built in), and PNG support would only be enabled 
if it can load libpng and zlib. That's pretty much how it is now, except 
the user needs to get and compile an add-on manually.

Also, I'm not too fond of loadpng. When I last looked, it still did some 
questionable things (reducing 16-bit down to 8-bit when loading, saves 
8-bit bitmaps by accessing bmp->line[0] and assuming linear memory, and 
saving 24-bit bitmaps as 32-bit PNGs, even though 15/16-bit bitmaps save 
as 24-bit PNGs). Now, while I coded my game I fixed these issues, but 
I'm not sure if the code is still fit for general Allegro use. I can 
look if you want.

- Kitty Cat