GBM Legal Stuff

Public domain declaration

The original version of GBM and the GBM tools for PM was written by Andy Key which he wrote in his own time on his own equipment. He used public non-confidential information to do so. He placed all this code into the public domain.

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have added code to GBM and the GBM tools under the same conditions and place all my donated code into the public domain as well. This does not apply to the used JBIG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, JPEG2000 and RAW helper libraries as well as to GBM plug-in for Lucide and GBM plug-in for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey.

These libraries have their own license.

The tools GBMVER, GBMCONV, the libraries GBMRX, GBMDLGRX, the GBM plugin for Lucide and the GBM plugin for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey have been entirely written by me (Heiko Nitzsche). I used public non-confidential information.

The source code of all GBM tools and libraries is freely available as well. The main goal is to support developers in creating new or enhancing existing applications for the OS/2 and eComStation platform. As the source code is placed into the Public Domain except for the above mentioned libs (JBIG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, JPEG2000, RAW, GBM plug-in for Lucide, GBM plug-in for Mozilla), this is especially targeted to non-commercial developers which cannot afford licensing costs. Nevertheless it can of course also be used for commercial applications. Developers of Non-GPL compliant applications should look at the JBIG licensing requirements (details see below).

Feel free to do whatever you like with it.

No copyright / no royalties / no guarantees / no problem. Caveat Emptor!

Anyone offering ideas/code must be happy with the above.


GBM plug-in for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey

This section is applicable if you are using the GBM plug-in for Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox/SeaMonkey as either binary or source code.

Please see the licensing policy:

GBM plug-in for Lucide

This section is applicable if you are using the GBM plug-in for Lucide as either binary or source code.

Please see the licensing policy:

JBIG support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with JBIG support.

The JBIG-Kit 2.0 may be used provided the license restrictions are followed (GPL).
Please see the licensing policy:

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have donated gbmjbg.c to GBM. This file allows GBM to use the JBIG-Kit 2.0 library.

GBM may be compiled up either with or without JBIG support. If you use the JBIG enabled variety of GBM in your project, please beware of the patenting issues:

Users of Non-GPL compatible software linking against GBM.DLL should study potential patenting issues. GBM.DLL can be built without JBIG support by disabling it in the main GBM makefile (e.g. gbm\makefile.xxx\makefile.yyy) if necessary.

JPEG support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with JPEG support.

The Independent JPEG Group JPEGLIB may be used provided they are credited, (which I do so here).
Please see their licensing policy:

This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

Martin Lisowski has donated gbmjpg.c to GBM and it is just as public domain as the rest of GBM. I added several enhancements to it.

JPEG2000 support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with JPEG2000 support.

The Open Source library OpenJPEG may be used provided their use is credited, (which I do so here).
Please see the licensing policy:

This software is based in part on them.

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have donated gbmj2k.c to GBM and it is just as public domain as the rest of GBM.

Compu$erve GIF Tax

Both, Unisys and IBM (and others), had various patents pertaining to the LZW algorithm used in GIF and LZW compressed TIFF files.

On 20th June 2003, US Patent 4,558,302 expired. This is the patent that describes the use of LZW in GIF files. Therefore, from now on, authors of commercial programs should no longer need to pay Compu$erve / UNISYS to use GIF.

PNG support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with PNG support.

The Open Source libraries Libpng and Zlib may be used provided they are credited, (which I do so here).
Please see their licensing policy:

This software is based in part on them.

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have donated gbmpng.c and gbmmap.c to GBM and they are just as public domain as the rest of GBM.

TIFF support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with TIF support.

The Open Source libraries Libtiff, Zlib, IJG and JBIG-Kit may be used provided they are credited, (which I do so here).
Please see their licensing policy:

This software is based in part on them.

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have donated gbmmap.c and a replacement gbmtif.c to GBM and they are just as public domain as the rest of GBM.

PBM, PGM, PPM, PNM support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with PBM, PGM, PPM or PNM support.

The Portable Bit- (PBM), Greyscale- (PGM), Pixel- (PPM) and Any-Map (PNM) formats have been defined by:
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 by Jef Poskanzer.

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have donated gbmmap.c and replacement codecs gbmpgm.c and gbmppm.c and new codecs gbmpbm.c and gbmpnm.c to GBM and they are just as public domain as the rest of GBM.

Camera RAW support

This section is applicable if you are using GBM with RAW support.

The Open Source library LibRaw may be used provided their use is credited, (which I do so here).
Please see the licensing policy:

This software is based in part on them.

I (Heiko Nitzsche) have donated gbmraw.c to GBM and it is just as public domain as the rest of GBM.