Just don't try to sell any app with it in it or Unisys will have you by the short and curlies.

Gif is based on the LZW compression algorithm (of which I've been playing with a lot lately to encode) but they'll hit you with a law suit if you try to sell anything with it or use it for corporate apps... Bastards

check it out http://www.unisys.com/unisys/lzw.

let me know if you want to know more about the algorithm... It's not illegal to study