The libungif package contains libraries for reading all GIFs and writing non-compressed ones as well as programs for converting and working with GIF files. The libraries are useful for any graphics program wishing to deal with GIF files while the programs are useful for conversion purposes as well as cleaning up images.
The reason libungif only writes non-compressed GIFs is due to a legal issue with LZW compression (which Unisys claims a patent on). Reading GIFs is not a problem as the decompression routines do not seem to be limited in this way. Note that this has in the past been disputed. The best way to avoid this whole mess is to simply use libungif for looking at GIF images on the web, while in any pages which you design, use the open source PNG format instead (which uses, not surprisingly, the libpng library) which has no patent issues at all.
Download (HTTP): http://ftp.sunfreeware.com/ftp/pub/freeware/SOURCES/libungif-4.1.0b1.tar.gz
Download (FTP): ftp://sunfreeware.secsup.org/pub/solaris/freeware/SOURCES/libungif-4.1.0b1.tar.gz
Download size: 343 KB
Estimated Disk space required: 3.1 MB
Estimated build time: 0.11 SBU
Install libungif by running the following commands:
patch -Np1 -i ../libungif-4.1.0b1-va_start.patch &&
./configure --prefix=/usr &&
make &&
make install
The libungif package contains gif2epsn, gif2ps, gif2rgb, gifasm, gifbg, gifburst, gifclip, gifclrmp, gifcolor, gifcomb, gifcompose, giffiltr, giffix, gifflip, gifhisto, gifinfo, gifinter, gifinto, gifovly, gifpos, gifrotat, gifrsize, gifspnge, giftext, gifwedge, icon2gif, raw2gif, rgb2gif, text2gif and libungif libraries.