Re: GIF support

[Andres Petralli <apetralli icu unizh ch>]

Hi Russell,

On 26.06.2004, at 08:29, Russell Coker wrote:
> GIF is not suitable for photos (doesn't compress well at today's color 
> depth).
> PNG makes a file of comparable size to GIF for generated graphics or 
> other
> situations where you want non-lossy compression.

I know, but GIF is still the graphic format of choice when it comes to 
web graphics. This does not mean it is suitable for photos.

> So what does GIF offer?  In the past it offered compatibility with 
> older
> software but that shouldn't be an issue now.

It is still an issue for web developers, believe me! Even though it has 
been technically surpassed by PNG, how many websites are using PNG 
instead of GIF? 1% or maybe rather 0.1%? There are not many...

> Adding it to specialised image processing tools may be good for 
> compatibility,
> but is there a real need to add it to every program that supports 
> writinga
> graphics file?

No, not every program, but applications and libraries like GD, PHP and 
ImageMagick should be able to handle GIF. Also, as I wrote before, GIF 
support is not difficult to add. Simply dig out those removed code 
lines there have been before they were removed because of those patent 
issues.

Greets,

Andres