http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/duke-wie/blog/2006/10/11/the-g
Slashdot has a discussion about the fact that all of the patents that covered gif have now expired. I suspect that it won’t have much impact on the graphics world - especially as .png is finally becoming more used. It’s going to take a long time for people to stop using .gif in favour of .png (and, I suspect a long time for some people to start using .gif rather than .jpg when the former is more appropriate for the particular setting!)