Licensing Information

Open Source Used In Cisco IPICS Server 4.9(1) 2469
ltconfig, ltmain.sh). Another support script, install-sh, is copyright
by M.I.T. but is also freely distributable.
It appears that the arithmetic coding option of the JPEG spec is covered by
patents owned by IBM, AT&T, and Mitsubishi. Hence arithmetic coding cannot
legally be used without obtaining one or more licenses. For this reason,
support for arithmetic coding has been removed from the free JPEG software.
(Since arithmetic coding provides only a marginal gain over the unpatented
Huffman mode, it is unlikely that very many implementations will support it.)
So far as we are aware, there are no patent restrictions on the remaining
code.
The IJG distribution formerly included code to read and write GIF files.
To avoid entanglement with the Unisys LZW patent, GIF reading support has
been removed altogether, and the GIF writer has been simplified to produce
"uncompressed GIFs". This technique does not use the LZW algorithm; the
resulting GIF files are larger than usual, but are readable by all standard
GIF decoders.
We are required to state that
"The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of
CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of
CompuServe Incorporated."
REFERENCES
==========
We highly recommend reading one or more of these references before trying to
understand the innards of the JPEG software.
The best short technical introduction to the JPEG compression algorithm is
Wallace, Gregory K. "The JPEG Still Picture Compression Standard",
Communications of the ACM, April 1991 (vol. 34 no. 4), pp. 30-44.
(Adjacent articles in that issue discuss MPEG motion picture compression,
applications of JPEG, and related topics.) If you don't have the CACM issue
handy, a PostScript file containing a revised version of Wallace's article is
available at ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/wallace.ps.gz. The file (actually
a preprint for an article that appeared in IEEE Trans. Consumer Electronics)
omits the sample images that appeared in CACM, but it includes corrections
and some added material. Note: the Wallace article is copyright ACM and IEEE,
and it may not be used for commercial purposes.
A somewhat less technical, more leisurely introduction to JPEG can be found in
"The Data Compression Book" by Mark Nelson and Jean-loup Gailly, published by
M&T Books (New York), 2nd ed. 1996, ISBN 1-55851-434-1. This book provides
good explanations and example C code for a multitude of compression methods
including JPEG. It is an excellent source if you are comfortable reading C