Money rolls in as Forgent licenses JPEG

It remains to be seen just where Forgent are going with this decision. There is, though, a potential that they could require everyone to be licensed - which as well as making them a lot of money, would see consumers paying for those licensing fees with increased product prices, and the abundance of shareware and freeware programs offering JPEG compatibility greatly reduced. There's also the question of related standards - for example the MotionJPEG codec used for the video files generated by many digital cameras, which bears strong similarities to the JPEG format.

Uproar! Maybe this will finally push us to PNG and JPEG 2000 (and Ogg Vorbis). But if these guys are smart, keep their licensing fees under the radar, and don't get too heavy-handed about it, they'll make themselves a good chunk of money. And more power to them. But if they start sledgehammering gnats, they'll kill the goose that lays golden eggs.   

10:43:41 PM  comment []