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COPYING
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# LZHUF General terms
Use, distribute, and modify this program freely
## Patents
All known LZW patents world-wide have expired after 2004.
## Historical reference
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.compression/c/u-YZjDzdF3A>
Post by Russell Marks
Aug 15, 2001, 5:31:54 AM
Recently I posted asking about the authors/licence of `lzhuf.c'.
I've contacted most of the authors since, so I thought I'd post the results.
My main question to them was whether I could use lzhuf.c in a GPL'd program,
but I did also try to clear up the original licence for those who might want
to use it in BSD-licenced programs, or whatever.
[1]
Kenji Rikitake said, "my contribution to lzhuf.c is very little and I will not
claim any objection for the usage".
Haruhiko Okumura (or should I say, Professor Okumura :-)) said, initially
referring to the "Permission granted for non-commercial use" comment that
Kenji asked to be added in 1989, "I was unaware that Kenji had added that
phrase. I (and as far as I know, Yoshi) have never been that strict; LHarc
and LHA have been included in many commercial software packages. There should
be no problem if you take LZHUF.C as either GPL'd or LGPL'd."
When I asked what licence I should say lzhuf.c was under, suggesting his old
terms for (among others) lzari.c which are "Use, distribute, and modify this
program freely", he agreed.
Haruyasu Yoshizaki (Yoshi) has proven difficult to contact. I've emailed him
at an address Prof. Okumura suggested might be worth trying, but from what
I've read on the web about how busy he's said to be (and how he doesn't really
want email, which explains why an email address for him was difficult to come
by), I don't expect a reply.
So, since lzhuf.c is significantly based on Okumura's lzari.c [2] (which has
always had the above licence), I'm going to go with his opinion on the matter,
and assume that Yoshi would not object. (Not least because Prof. Okumura said
`I can assure you that his intention has always been "try it, and improve
it."')
In summary:
The authors I've been able to contact agree to the licence "Use, distribute, and modify this program freely" - "freely" here meaning `without restriction',
and not being a reference to price. The remaining author I've not been able to
contact, but the licence appears consistent with his intent, and was also the
licence on the original program which he modified (lzari.c).
-Rus.
[1] But note that LZH compression is unfortunately patented (US patent no.
4,906,991 covers it) - decompression isn't, so I don't expect this to affect
my program. And unless you have a specific need for LZH like I did, something
like zlib would generally be a better choice anyway.
[2] The version of lzhuf.c referred to by the `author' of the CP/M port made
this rather clearer:
* LZSS coded by Haruhiko OKUMURA
* Adaptive Huffman Coding coded by Haruyasu YOSHIZAKI
* Edited and translated to English by Kenji RIKITAKE