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 <title>Why There Are No GIF Files on GNU Web Pages 
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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 <h2>Why There Are No GIF Files on GNU Web Pages</h2>
 <div class="thin"></div>
 
 <div class="introduction">
 <p><em>There is no special patent threat to GIF format nowadays
 as far as we know; <a href="#venuenote">the patents that were used to
 attack GIF have expired</a>.  Nonetheless, this article will remain
 pertinent as long as programs can be forbidden by patents, since the
 same sorts of things could happen in any area of computing.  See
 <a href="/server/standards/gnu-website-guidelines.html#UseofGraphics">our
 website policies regarding GIFs</a>.</em></p>
 </div>
 <hr class="no-display" />
 
 <p>
 There are no GIFs on the GNU web site because of the
 patents (Unisys and IBM) covering
 the LZW compression algorithm
 which is used in making GIF files.  These patents make it
 impossible to have free software to generate proper GIFs.
 They also apply to the <strong>compress</strong> program, which is why
 GNU does not use it or its format.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Unisys and IBM both applied for patents in 1983.  Unisys (and perhaps
 IBM) applied for these patents in a number of countries.  Of the
 places whose patent databases we were able to search, the latest
 expiration date seems to be 1 October 2006&#8239;<a class="ftn"
 href="#venuenote">[1]</a>. Until then,
 anyone who releases a free program for making GIF files
 is likely to be sued.  We don't know any reason to think that the
 patent owners would lose these lawsuits.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 If we released such a program, Unisys and IBM might think it wiser
 (for public relations reasons) not to sue a charity like the FSF.
 They could instead sue the users of the program, including the
 companies who redistribute GNU software.  We feel it would not be
 responsible behavior for us to set up this situation.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Many people think that Unisys has given permission for distributing
 free software to make GIF format.  Unfortunately that is
 not what Unisys has actually done.  Here is what Unisys actually said
 about the matter in 1995:
 </p>
 
 <blockquote><p>Unisys does not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for
 non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications,
 including those for use on the on-line services.  Concerning
 developers of software for the Internet network, the same principle
 applies.  Unisys will not pursue previous inadvertent infringement by
 developers producing versions of software products for the Internet
 prior to 1995. The company does not require licensing, or fees to be
 paid for non-commercial, non-profit offerings on the Internet,
 including &ldquo;Freeware.&rdquo;</p></blockquote>
 
 <p>
 Unfortunately, this doesn't permit
 <a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">free software</a> which can be used
 in a free operating system such as GNU.  It also does not
 permit <em>at all</em> the use of LZW for other purposes
 such as compression of files.  This is why we think it is still best
 to reject LZW, and switch to alternatives such
 as <a href="/software/gzip/gzip.html">GNU Gzip</a>
 and PNG.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 <a href="/philosophy/selling.html">Commercial redistribution of free
 software</a> is very important, and we want the GNU system as a whole
 to be redistributed commercially.  This means we can't add
 a GIF-generating program to GNU, not under the Unisys
 terms.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 The <a href="https://www.fsf.org">Free Software Foundation</a> is a
 non-commercial, non-profit organization, so strictly speaking the
 income from our sales of <a href="https://shop.fsf.org/">CD-ROMs</a>
 is not &ldquo;profit.&rdquo;  Perhaps this means we could include
 a GIF program on our CD-ROM and claim to be acting within
 the scope of the Unisys permission&mdash;or perhaps not.  But since we
 know that other redistributors of GNU would be unable to include it,
 doing this would not be very useful.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Shortly after Unisys made its announcement, when the net in general
 was reassured thinking that Unisys had given permission for
 free GIF-generating software, we wrote to the Unisys
 legal department asking for clarification of these issues.  We did not
 receive a response.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Even if Unisys really did give permission for free software to
 generate GIFs, we would still have to deal with the IBM
 patent.  Both the IBM and the Unisys patents cover the same
 &ldquo;invention&rdquo;&mdash;the LZW compression
 algorithm.  (This could reflect an error on the part of the US Patent
 and Trademark Office, which is famous for incompetence and poor
 judgment.)
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Decoding GIFs is a different issue.  The Unisys and IBM
 patents are both written in such a way that they do not apply to a
 program which can only uncompress LZW format and cannot
 compress.  Therefore we can and will include support for
 displaying GIF files in GNU software.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Given this situation, we could still include GIF files in
 our web pages if we wanted to.  Many other people would be happy to
 generate them for us, and we would not be sued for
 having GIF files on our server.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 But we feel that if we can't distribute the software to enable people
 to generate GIF files properly, then we should not have
 other people run such software for us.  Besides, if we can't provide
 software in GNU to generate GIF files, we have to
 recommend an alternative.  We ourselves should use the alternative
 that we recommend.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 In 1999, Unisys had the following to say about the issue of their
 patent:
 </p>
 
 <blockquote><p>Unisys has frequently been asked whether a Unisys
 license is required in order to use LZW software obtained
 by downloading from the Internet or from other sources. The answer is
 simple. In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed
 by an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for all
 use, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called
 &ldquo;freeware&rdquo;) and/or hardware providing LZW
 conversion capability (for example, downloaded
 software).</p></blockquote>
 
 <p>
 With this statement, Unisys is trying to take back what they said in
 1995 when they gave parts of the patent to the public. The legality of
 such a move is questionable.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 A further issue is that the LZW patents&mdash;and computational idea
 patents in general&mdash;are an offense against the freedom of
 programmers generally, and all programmers need to work together
 to <a href="/philosophy/limit-patent-effect.html">protect
 software from patents.</a>
 </p>
 
 <p>
 So even if we could find a solution to enable the free software
 community to generate GIFs, that isn't really a solution,
 not for the problem as a whole.  The solution is switching to another
 format and not using GIF any more.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 Therefore, we don't use GIF, and we hope you won't use it
 either.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 It is possible to make non-compressed images that act
 like GIFs, in that they work with programs that
 decode GIF format.  This can be done without infringing
 patents.  These pseudo-GIFs are useful for some purposes.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 It is also possible to create GIFs using a patent-free
 run length encoding but this doesn't achieve the compression that one
 normally expects in a GIF.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 We decided not to use these pseudo-GIFs on our web site
 because they are not a satisfactory solution to the community's
 problem.  They work, but they are very large.  What the web needs is a
 patent-free compressed format, not large pseudo-GIFs.
 </p>
 
 <p> 
 The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics">PNG
 format</a> is a patent-free compressed format.  We hope it will become
 widely supported; then we will use it.  We do provide PNG versions of
 most of the <a href="/graphics/graphics.html">images on this server</a>.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 For more information about the GIF patent problems,
 see <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150329143651/http://progfree.org/Patents/patents.html">the League for
 Programming Freedom GIF page</a>.  Through that page you
 can find more information about the <a
 href="https://endsoftwarepatents.org/">problem of software patents in
 general.</a>
 </p>
 
 <p>
 There is a library called libungif that reads gif files and writes
 uncompressed gifs to circumvent the Unisys patent.
 </p>
 
 <p>
 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171203193534/http://burnallgifs.org/">
 burnallgifs.org</a> is a
 web site devoted to discouraging the use of GIF files on
 the web.
 </p>
 <div class="column-limit"></div>
 
 <h3 class="footnote">Footnote</h3>
 <ol>
 <li id="venuenote">
 <p>We were able to search
 the patent databases of the USA, Canada, Japan, and the European
 Union. The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europe
 it expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan the patent expired on 20 June
 2004 and in Canada it expired on 7 July 2004. The U.S. IBM patent
 expired 11 August 2006. The Software Freedom Law Center says that
 after 1 October 2006, there will be no significant patent claims
 interfering with the use of static GIFs.</p>
 
 <p>Animated GIFs are a different story.  We do not know what patents
 might cover them.  However, we have not heard reports of threats
 against use of animated GIFs.  Any software can be threatened by
 patents, but we have no reason to consider animated GIFs to be in
 particular danger&mdash;no particular reason to shun them.</p>
 </li>
 </ol>
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