| Re: [AD] GIF patent / support |
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From: "Chris" <kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > + Most likely license issues. Allegro's giftware license is too
> > + permissive to easily include third party software. Even if the
license
> > + of some file format was compatible, the Allegro developers have
decided
> > + to not include further file format support into Allegro. They can
be
> > + writen as addons using register_bitmap_file_type(). For available
> > + addons, browse the Libraries section of the website
> > + <link>http://www.allegro.cc/</a>.
>
> Hmm.. this still sounds a bit cop-out-ish. Granted it could be far
> worse, I think something along the lines of this would be better:
>
> "Supporting a more popular format would make Allegro programs too
> dependant on that format and go against Allegro's cross-platform and
> format-inspecific nature. There are plenty of add-on extensions for you
> to pick and choose from to put in your own code."
Well, we could go right to the point:
"There are many reasons why additional graphics formats are not available:
- PNG: PNG is dependent on two external libraries, each of which have
licenses incompatible with Allegro.
- JPG: Again, the code necessary to decode JPG files has a license that is
incompatible with Allegro.
- GIF: We could add GIF, but we just don't like it, so we won't. GIF files
are limited to 256 colors, and animated GIFs cannot be displayed directly
using Allegro's BITMAP system.
Support for alternate image formats can be added easily via add-ons; once an
add-on image loader registers itself with Allegro via
register_bitmap_file_type(), it's just as easy to use as any other Allegro
image type. See the Libraries section at http://www.allegro.cc for these and
other image loading add-ons."
--Chris