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From: raveling@Unify.com (Paul Raveling)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Image file format poll results
Message-ID: <1991Feb19.164844@Unify.com>
Date: 20 Feb 91 00:48:44 GMT
References: <1991Feb12.120203@Unify.com> <3181@sixhub.UUCP>
Sender: news@Unify.Com (news admin)
Reply-To: raveling@Unify.com (Paul Raveling)
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 69

In article <3181@sixhub.UUCP>, davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) writes:
> In article <1991Feb12.120203@Unify.com> raveling@Unify.com (Paul
Raveling) writes:
> 
>   Perhaps you should develop some really good format and let the
public
> make it popular because it's better than all the rest. If it's good,
> people will write versions for many machines. If the first
> implementation is good it will port to many machines without much
> effort.

	In my case that's the Img file format (mine, not the others)
	and the Img Software Set.  In one followon email discussion
	to the file format question someone else cited some criteria
	for a good file format and rated Sun rasterfiles.  I responded
	with how Img format matches his criteria, and it at least beats
	Sun rasterfiles.  I still occasionally get messages from people
	who comment on how well the Img Software Set works, particularly
	for integrating smoothly into the multi-visual X world.

	However, technical merit alone doesn't sell a format.  Because
	it's pretty easy to read an Img-format file, people write converters
	to add Img-format images to their preponderantly larger collections
	of images in other formats.  Although I supplied several common
	applications with the Img Software Set, there was never time to
	add the graphic editor that might have visibly differentiated it.

	The result is that I still don't know of a better format for
	what I do with images, but the Img format will eventually
	join many others in going extinct.

>   If you have a good idea it will take off unless you work hard to
hold
> it down. Examples are GNU software, netnews, X-windows, GIF, ZIP,
etc.
> There's no need at all for commercial involvement. If you have a bad
> idea, the only way to make it common is to have IBM adopt it as a
> standard, and *nothing* will make it popular.

	I wish that were true.  The problem is that almost anything
	can get a bandwagon rolling.  In software, Unix is the best
	example.  There were systems in the mid-70's that did many
	things better than Unix, often quantifiably better -- for example,
	the PDP-11 system we produced at ISI benchmarked as 43 times
	faster than Unix in context switching with interprocess
	communication.

	My assessment of Unix in ~1975 was that it offered a little
	bit of new technology, but where it was outstanding was in its
	ratio of capability to effort needed to implement that capability.
	That's what started its bandwagon.  However, my assessment was
	also that its architecture was inadequate for multi-process
	applications and could not be extended without a large amount
	of effort.  That has proven to be true.  Add a generous dose
	of user-hostile human interfaces... oh well.

	On the bright side, at least the momentum of PC hardware and
	IBM's own bandwagon headed off another dangerous one -- the
	bandwagon that could have saddled us with CP/M as the "standard"
	operating system.

	Whether operating systems, autos (remember how advanced the
	Tucker was for its time?) or image file formats, technical
	merit doesn't guarantee acceptance.


------------------
Paul Raveling
Raveling@Unify.com