[oclug] Why is the GIMP Illegal? (was Governments requesting anticounterfeit...)

[Milan Budimirovic]

On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 10:07, Rod Giffin wrote:
> Brian Barber said:
> > Pardon my ignorance, but why would The GIMP be consedered illegal?  Is
> > it because of Unisys' gif patent issue?
> 
> As far as I know, The GIMP isn't illegal anywhere, even in respect of the
> gif LZW patent issue.  You might have to pay UniSys a license fee under
> some circumstances, but that's certainly not the same as being "illegal".
> 
> Also, with respect to this new challenge, the way Photoshop prevents you
> from using an image which is too close to a $20.00 bill is by a fairly
> simple pattern recognition technology.   Something like it can be
> incorporated fairly easily into The GIMP because of it's plugable
> interface.
> 
> I'm not saying this is a good way to stop serious counterfeiters - it's
> not.  But when it's trivial to get a printer capable of printing something
> that looke close enough to paper currency that a lot of people wouldn't
> think twice about taking, you have a problem that needs to be addressed.
> 
> Rod.
> 

Yeah. I think that the Photoshop feature is there just to deter the
amateur counterfeiters, many of whom are kids who probably don't realize
how serious an offense it really is.