Tony, et al,
At 2:04 PM 1/9/95, hansen(_at_)pegasus(_dot_)att(_dot_)com wrote:
But the MIME specs do NOT say anything about the use of patented technology.
Correct, because I guess we didn't realize there was a patent claim on gif.
The IETF standards process documentation very much DOES have discussion
about the question of standardizing patented technology.
Unfortunately, image/gif is in the original Mime spec. And THAT spec IS on
the standards track. That makes the content-types referenced in it
implicitly part of the standard.
So, if image/gif were merely registered with IANA separately, there'd be no
problem. Having it built into the Mime spec changes things, I believe.
d/
--------------------
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr. fax: +1 408 249 6205
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
dcrocker(_at_)mordor(_dot_)stanford(_dot_)edu