incompatible licences and other issues

[Brian E. Doty]

You have pointed out some cases where we redistribute software
we did not write; we do not have permission to change
the copyright on that software (we do have permission
to redistribute it).  We believe this software is very
useful to the GrADS community which is why we distribute
it with GrADS.

As for LZW compression, the patent holders made clear public
statements in the early 90s that the patent could be freely
used for non-commercial purposes, so we distributed gif
utilities that included the compression.  At some point later
in the 90s, the patent holders rescinded that permission, so
we disabled the uses of LZW compression in GrADS and its
associated utilities.  Now that the
LZW patent has expired, we expect at some point to
have compressed gif capability in printim.  Although
I personally think png is the better way to go
for the future... Brian