Re: [AD] GIF patent / support

[Dustin Dettmer <dustin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

KittyCat wrote:
> 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.

Wouldnt it make more sense to ingrain the PNG support
into Allegro?  I think thats a more attractive
approach as far as an Allegro user is concerned.  If
you're going to use a game / graphic library, wouldnt
it be nice if that library was capable of reading and
writting popular image formats?  It may be too much of
a hastle, but I think its something worth considering.