Subject: All .GIFs must be gone by 31 Dec 1999

From: Rick Moen <rick>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 16:28:57 -0700

As you may or may not have read, Unisys Corp. is now enforcing against
_all Web sites_ its patent on the LZW compression used in GIF images.
Sites that contain .gif images are being required to pay $5000
licence fees (unless all their .gifs were produced by Unisys-licenced
software).

Because of this, I am forced to require removal of all GIF images from
my Web server.  Including yours.  All must be gone by 31 December 1999,
or I will delete them on New Year's Day.

You may want to convert your images to a suitable format.  "PNG" format
is best.  Failing that, I use JPEG.  "hugin" has a command-line tool
(gif2png) that works to convert _some_ GIF files to PNG.  It always
terminates with an error ("segmentation fault"), but sometimes produces
a usable PNG image before dying.

Other useful software on Unix desktop OSes include xv and Electric Eyes.
(I used xv to convert all GIFs in hugin's main Web tree and my personal
pages.)  I'm not sure what you would use on legacy Windows or Macintosh
OSes.  Don't forget to change references to those files on your Web
pages!

For your convenience, following is a list of all publicly-accessible
.GIF files in your directories.  All _will_ be deleted if they're
still around after year's end.  (Please note that I don't care about
.GIFs you keep in directories that aren't Web-accessible.)

/home/tpreston/public_html/bulldogl.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/about.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/articles.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/blueline.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/events.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/home.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/leftdonk.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/links.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/member.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/midnite.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/redline.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/skull2.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/skulline.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/starline.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/tiedye.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/treasure.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/usflag.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/images/welcome.gif
/home/tpreston/public_html/top10.gif