HEIC image support

[ioma8]

Feature request

What are you trying to achieve?

Trying to decode HEIC images.

When you searched for similar feature requests, what did you find that might be related?

You do not include it in the release builds.

What would you expect the API to look like?

Should work.

What alternatives have you considered?

Please provide sample image(s) that help explain this feature

Any HEIC image.

Let me understand why HEIC image format is not supported in the binaries. In other issues you are writing it is due to some patent related issues. But I do not understand. Almost all open-source image processing libraries support HEIC format in official release binaries. Ffmpeg supports it. ImageMagick supports it. I think sharp should also support it as in entire opensource world there doesnt seem to be issue with releasing and distributing binaries which support decoding of HEIC image format. Consider adding it by default to release builds.

[lovell]

Hello, most software that "supports" HEIC does so by providing source code, which is not patentable. For example, https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html says

FFmpeg only provides source code.

As you probably know, providing source code is a different legal matter to providing binaries that can process data using patent-encumbered technology. I'm aware some operating systems take a measured/insured risk by publishing such binaries. I've been advised that the current download counts of sharp might incur licensing fees of around US$25m/year.

sharp will always support use of a globally-installed libvips that itself has been compiled with support for HEIC images.

https://sharp.pixelplumbing.com/install/#custom-libvips