At least the US patent for the LZW Compression that is used with GIF expired in June 20. 2003. So you'll be able to use it legally.
There are several solutions to convert BMP to GIF, so you could save a buffer and then convert it. Unfortunately most of them don't use LZW Compression yet since they were started while the patent was still active. So they use uncompressed GIF or RLE-compressed GIF.
this DLL is for free:
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Web_Authoring/Misc__Programming_Tools/otf_GIF_Maker_BMP2GIF_Converter.html
But I have no idea how easy it will be to use it with Blitz.
Then here's a Power Basic Source (public domain):
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/forums/Forum7/HTML/001762.html
So it may be realitvely easy to convert it to Blitz.
Then here's a tiny commandline tool that may be the easist solution for you:
http://www.simtel.net/product.php[id]8215[sekid]0[SiteID]simtel.net
There are several solutions to convert BMP to GIF, so you could save a buffer and then convert it. Unfortunately most of them don't use LZW Compression yet since they were started while the patent was still active. So they use uncompressed GIF or RLE-compressed GIF.
this DLL is for free:
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Web_Authoring/Misc__Programming_Tools/otf_GIF_Maker_BMP2GIF_Converter.html
But I have no idea how easy it will be to use it with Blitz.
Then here's a Power Basic Source (public domain):
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/forums/Forum7/HTML/001762.html
So it may be realitvely easy to convert it to Blitz.
Then here's a tiny commandline tool that may be the easist solution for you:
http://www.simtel.net/product.php[id]8215[sekid]0[SiteID]simtel.net