On the 20th of June the patent relating to the GIF file format expired.
Up until now software companies such as Adobe, have had to pay to use the format in their software e.g. in Photoshop. The expiry of the patent may therefore lead to a fall in some software prices.
Also, people who use PHP will know that the graphics library known as the GD Library had to remove support for manipulating and creating GIF files because of the patent – so perhaps this format will once again be supported.
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