Burn All GIFs

This page is kept for historical interest. Any policies mentioned may be obsolete. If you want to revive the topic, you can use the talk page or start a discussion on the community forum.

The GIF patent issues expired in 2004, and GIFs are currently allowed uploads on Wikipedia.

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(For why GIFs are bad, see http://burnallgifs.org/ )

At present, when someone uploads a GIF image file to Wikipedia, they're told it's "not a recommended format". This isn't likely to stop anyone once they've got that far, so they'll probably just hit "Save anyway". Plus, we've got a zillion GIF files already uploaded from the olden days.

Would it be desireable to do automated conversion to PNG? Or at the least, offering a conversion along with that upload warning?

Pros:

• By eliminating the use of a patent-encumbered file format on our site, we support the open/free-content ideals this project is built on.
• Wikipedia and Bomis avoid the potential of a Unisys lawsuit for 'contributory infringement' of their LZW compression patent for providing download of files that might be compressed with unlicensed software.
• PNG is a better format - better compression, full-colour support, and is the official GIF24 format, too.

Cons:

• Animated GIFs can't be converted cleanly (or is that a pro? ;) (Note that there is MNG, but it's not widely supported)
• Some browsers don't support transparency in PNGs correctly. These are older versions, but still in use.
• Conversion may hide/destroy embedded comments which note the origin of a mistakenly uploaded copyrighted non-GFDL image, making it harder to track down things we need to eliminate
• The GIF patent expired in 2004.
  • Do I need to create Avoid patent paranoia? --User:Eloquence
  • If Mickey Mouse can renew copyright....

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Comments?

Mine (Magnus Manske):

• I'm all for PNGs.
• Bomis can't be sued by Unisys for using GIFs. Only for generating/saving them without paying a fee to Unisys.
• There lies the problem: To generate PNGs from GIFs, Bomis will have to use software that pays patent fees to Unisys, AFAIK.
• Dump animated GIFs! :-)
• The transparency issue concerns only the alpha channel, AFAIK. Defining a color as transparent, like GIFs do, should work.
• I suspect many "illegal" images on wikipedia already, so one more losing that embedded GIF notice won't matter...

Tarquin 's :

• PNGs are good
• Animated GIFs are horrible. I can think of very few instances where they would be justified. (simple kinematics -- but would need soooo many frames). And to my knowledge, the only animated GIFs we have are horrible "widgety" things that have no actual content.
• Automated conversion -- do you mean at upload or a one-time pass through all of our existing GIFs?
  • Upload -- let's ban GIFs. problem solved. If users really can't save in PNG format, they can always ask at the Vilage Pump for someone else to convert for them
  • Mass conversion -- This would be able to sniff animated GIFs, right? It could generate a list that we can examine for a) convert to MNG b) KILL!!!!

Likewise comments -- conversion script could rip out comment blocks and add them to the [ [image: page?

• Transparency isn't much of an issue since we know we're on a white background. It certainly hasn't bothered us for the TeX PNGs.

Eloquence's:

Who cares? GIFs will be free soon, unlike Mickey Mouse. There are a few legitimate uses of GIF anims, but I'd like to get rid of the animated flags and stuff like that. There should be a policy against that. Better yet, a law. With severe punishment.

Jimbo's:

When will GIFs be a free format? How many animated GIFs do we have? Is Magnus right (I don't think so) that we would need some for-pay software to convert away from GIF's? (I think only creating them is encumbered, not reading them.)

My feeling is that getting rid of them is a good thing for the reasons you mentioned, but if the time left on the patent is short enough, it'll be a moot point soon enough.