Re: [Lcms-user] foundation for littleCMS ?

[Jan-Peter H. <ho...@co...>]

Hello list, hello Bob and Marti
---
I=B4m just observing the colormanagement market. Actually littleCMS has=20
grown up to a status, that is comparable or even better than e.g.
- Microsoft ICM
- AppleCMM
- AdobeCMM
- KodakCMM
- EFICMM
Now, commercial companies are using it for free, without giving back=20
something to Marti or the open-source community.
People, which are familiar with colormanagement-business, should=20
remember, that 10 years ago, EFI was more or less suiting every company,=20
which had in their software a functionality to separate RGB to CMYK,=20
because they are violationg the "Schreiber-Patent" which EFI is the=20
owner of.
Even if we all don=B4t like such fields of politics and patent wars,
we are now on very thin ice, because Marti is doing an incredible good=20
job with littleCMS.

The future of littleCMS is clearly in the hand of Marti, because it is=20
his project, and he wrote more or less 100% of the code. But legal=20
issues can also be important to projects which are using littleCMS.

One example from the past:
In the middle of the 90ties the german software-company BEST had the=20
idea to write CMYK-drivers for inkjet-printers and putting it together=20
with the commercial version of GhostScript and a CMM in a solution for=20
digital proofing in the graphic arts market.
At the beginning, the big players in the proofing market laughed about=20
this small company:

"It will never be possible to use cheap inkjet printers for high-end=20
proofing".

5 years later, BEST was selling worldwide the highest quantity of=20
digital proofing solutions.
One big issue at BEST was the question, which CMM they should licence,=20
that they are shure, that the owner of the CMM has strong enough patents=20
  not to be suited by EFI or others.

So legal issues concerning littleCMM are also legal issues for projects,=20
which make use of littleCMS.

Somekind of foundation could "may be" a solution which is clearing such=20
legal issues, so that Marti can do the things he likes:

"coding"

The decision what to do with littleCMS is mainly Martis decision.
But on this list, we can share our views of the colormanagement market=20
and open source vs. color-patent issues.

Greetings
:-) Jan-Peter



Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Oct 2005, Jan-Peter Homann wrote:

>> Even for commercial companies, which wish to sponsor littleCMS or=20
>> Marti, it is really hard to transfer money, because, there is no=20
>> infrastructure for it.
>>
>> From my view, littleCMS is shortly before becoming the "apache" of=20
>> cross-plattform ICC-based colormanagement.
>=20
>=20
> I hope not!  The projects you mentioned are ponderous political=20
> nightmares designed to support large infrastructures.  From what I see,=
=20
> Little CMS is still Marti's project and it should stay that way. It=20
> should operate as he sees fit.
>=20
> There is *plenty* of infrastructure available to send money to Marti. A=
n=20
> umbrella organization (which takes ownership away from the software's=20
> original author in exchange for vauge legal protections) is not=20
> required.  The fact of the matter is that Marti has not requested=20
> contributions from Little CMS users.  Requesting contributions could be=
=20
> as simple as setting up payment via Paypal and adding a "Contribute to=20
> Little CMS" link on the web site, or using the existing contribution=20
> mechanism offered via SourceForge.
>=20
> Marti is a master of his craft and can pull in lots of income on a=20
> consulting basis if he chooses to.  Perhaps he does so already. Marti's=
=20
> private finances are not our concern.



--=20
--

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Jan-Peter Homann ------------- mobile +49 171 54 70 358
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