Re: Don't worry about the JPEG one...
Well, thanks for the help! The gif one is a non issue for us, since IBM ponied up a long time ago. It's the jpeg ones that concern us... we don't want to become a target as we don't have the resources to defend ourselves from that sort of thing... and it could be a good way for certain parties to scuttle us (and I don't necessarily mean MSFT, either!).
We're hoping to replace the jpeg ioproc (that's what a runtime {*.dll} that handles codecs for MMOS2 is called) with a third party version that is less likely to croak out. We're also hoping to beef up the AVI support to include more versions of that voluminous standard.
The guy in question (I think he should remain nameless for now) has told me that the issue is a huge one, requiring a lot of labour. His research into how all these things are handled has led him into a quagmire... there are so many things that could be interpreted as infringing on so many things that finding out about all of them has turned into a complete time sucker for him.
Thanks again about the heads up on that one... I'm going to refer him to the page mentioned in this thread as well. The risk assesment on this issue is not up to me, for which I'm grateful:)
Thanks again, Ben... and if you have any pointers about where to get info to hack one's way through the jungle of patents on multimedia codecs, I'd be interested in reading them...
