GIFSICLE 1.11
=============

ABOUT GIFSICLE
--------------
   Gifsicle twaddles GIF image files in a variety of ways. It is better
than many of the freely available GIF twaddlers on the market -- for one
thing, it has more options.

   It supports merging several GIFs into a GIF animation; exploding an
animation into its component frames; changing individual frames in an
animation; turning interlacing on and off; adding transparency; adding
delays, disposals, and looping to animations; adding or removing comments;
flipping and rotation; optimizing animations for space; and changing
images' colormaps, among other things. Extensive command-line options
control which, if any, of these occur.

   Please see the man page, `gifsicle.1', for more information.

   Gifview, a companion program requiring X11, displays GIF images and
animations on an X display. It can display multi-frame GIFs either as
slideshows, displaying one frame at a time, or as real-time animations. See
its man page, `gifview.1', for more information.

   Gifdiff, another companion program (not built by default), checks two
GIF files for identical visual appearance. This is probably not useful
unless you're testing GIF-manipulating software. See its man page,
`gifdiff.1', for more information.

   The Gifsicle package comes with NO WARRANTY, express or implied,
including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability
and fitness for a particular purpose.

MAKING GIFSICLE ON UNIX
-----------------------
   You need an ANSI C compiler, such as gcc.

   Just type `./configure', then `make'. `make install' will build and
install gifsicle and its manual page (under /usr/local by default).

   `./configure' accepts the usual options. See `INSTALL' for more
details.

   To build without gifview (for example, if you don't have X11), give the
`--disable-gifview' option. To build gifdiff, give the `--enable-gifdiff'
option.

MAKING GIFSICLE ON 32-BIT WINDOWS
---------------------------------
   Emil Mikulic <darkmoon@connexus.net.au> has provided a Makefile for
building gifsicle out of the box on 32-bit Windows. Just unpack the
distribution, change into that directory, and type `nmake -f Makefile.w32'.
Gifview and gifdiff will not be built. See the `Makefile.w32' file for more
information.

CHANGES
-------
   See `NEWS' in this directory for a detailed listing of changes.

BUGS, SUGGESTIONS, ETC.
-----------------------
   Please write me if you have trouble building or running gifsicle, or if
you have suggestions or patches.

	Eddie Kohler
	eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu
	http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~eddietwo/

GIFSICLE HOME PAGE
------------------
   For latest distributions, bug reports, and other stuff, see the Gifsicle
home page at

	http://www.lcdf.org/~eddietwo/gifsicle/

COPYRIGHT/LICENSE
-----------------
   All source code is Copyright (C) 1997-8 Eddie Kohler.

   IF YOU PLAN TO USE GIFSICLE TO CREATE OR MODIFY GIF IMAGES, BUT NOT TO
REDISTRIBUTE ITS CODE, DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE REST OF THIS SECTION. Anyone
can use Gifsicle however they wish; the license applies only to those who
plan to copy, distribute, or alter its code. If you plan to use Gifsicle
for an organizational or commercial Web site, I would appreciate a link to
the Gifsicle home page on an `About This Server' page, if one exists, but
it's not required.

   This code, with the exception of the GIF compression code in gifwrite.c,
is distributed under the GNU General Public License, Version 2, or, at your
discretion, any later version. The GNU General Public License is available
via the Web at <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>

   The following alternative license may be used at your discretion.

   Permission is granted to copy, distribute, or alter gifsicle, whole
or in part, as long as source code copyright notices are kept intact, with
the following restrictions.

   1. Unisys Corp. holds a patent on the Lempel-Ziv-Welch compression
algorithm used by GIF images. When this first became an issue several years
ago, Unisys stated that programs available at no cost to the user, like
Gifsicle, could use LZW compression in the context of GIF images without
obtaining a license. If you plan to distribute GIF writing code in a
shareware or commercial product, you will need to worry about obtaining a
license. (Many people believe that LZW decompression is not covered by the
Unisys patent, so GIF reading code is probably all right.)

   2. Developers or distributors who plan to use Gifsicle code, whole or in
part, in a product whose source code will not be made available to the end
user -- more precisely, in a context which would violate the GPL -- MUST
contact the author and obtain permission before doing so.

AUTHORS
-------
Eddie Kohler, <eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu>
http://www.pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~eddietwo/
He wrote it.

Anne Dudfield, <anne@lvld.hp.com>
http://web.mit.edu/annied/www/home.html
She named it.

David Hedbor, <david@hedbor.org>
Many bug reports and constructive whining about the optimizer.

Emil Mikulic, <darkmoon@connexus.net.au>
Win32 port help.

Christian Kumpf, <kumpf@igd.fhg.de>
Idea and some code for `--use-colormap=gray'.
