2007.07.14 17:39 "Re: [Tiff] [ANNOUNCE]: Libtiff 3.9.0beta released", by Lee Howard

People should be aware that the JBIG implementation does NOT allow for commercial use of LibTIFF, since it is based on JPEG-KIT. Anyone shipping commercial products based on this release will either have to remove it, or obtain a license.

The library is called JBIG-KIT, and yes it is GPL. However, as Bob pointed out, that doesn't necessarily preclude commercial use.

JBIG support is compiled-in only if the JBIG-KIT library is found during configure *and* if "--disable-jbig" is not used. If you're building libtiff and you don't want JBIG support compiled-in then you can either ensure that you don't have JBIG-KIT installed (some Linux distros do have it) or simply ensure that you always use "--disable-jbig". There is no need to *remove* code from libtiff.

That said, JBIG is patent-encumbered, and so if you use JBIG support you may wish to obtain proper licensing. Markus Kuhn (the JBIG-KIT) author, discusses the patent issues at length on his website:

  http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/jbigkit/patents.html

Thanks,

Lee.