< No, I'm not objecting on principle, at least not at this time. The policy
< for the use of patented technology has already been considered. I'm just
< suggesting that we follow it.
But the MIME specs do NOT say anything about the use of patented technology.
The MIME specs DO say how to label an image which has been created with that
possibly-patented technology, which is a whole different category.
Looking at what's said in rfc 1521 regarding gif:
image -- image data. Image requires a display device
(such as a graphical display, a printer, or a FAX
machine) to view the information. Initial
subtypes are defined for two widely-used image
formats, jpeg and gif.
...
A Content-Type of "image" indicates that the body contains an image.
The subtype names the specific image format. These names are case
insensitive. Two initial subtypes are "jpeg" for the JPEG format,
JFIF encoding, and "gif" for GIF format [GIF].
...
[GIF] Graphics Interchange Format (Version 89a), Compuserve, Inc.,
Columbus, Ohio, 1990.
All the above says is that "if you choose to use the image format of GIF89A,
then you must label your image in MIME messages using the content-type of
image/gif." I don't see anything above that warrants removal or that
requires qualificiation.
Tony Hansen
hansen(_at_)pegasus(_dot_)att(_dot_)com,
tony(_at_)attmail(_dot_)com
att!pegasus!hansen, attmail!tony