tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) (05/11/88)
This is a request for COMMENT on creating a new group: comp.binaries.gif. This is NOT a request for votes - let's discuss it first. GIF stands for Graphics Interface Format, and was invented by the folks at CompuServe fairly recently as a storage format for color raster graphics images. It is designed to be portable across many different computer architectures. GIF files can be anywhere from a few K to half a megabyte in size (this is the range I have seen, anyway); the average seems to be about 50k bytes. The raster size and color palette is defined within each picture file. Implementations exist for most of the popular personal computers at this point; I really don't know what has been done for Suns et cetera, but in principle you can view GIF on any graphics display. Anyway, we are starting to see a fair volume of GIF files posted to the net, along with programs to view them. I am proposing that we create a newsgroup just for the picture (xxxx.gif) files themselves; here are my two main reasons: 1. Right now people tend to post GIF files to the .sys or .bin newsgroup for *their* brand of computer, be it Mac, Amiga or whatever. Thus people with other makes who COULD view them, don't see them because they unsubscribe to the foreign groups. We could ask everybody to crosspost like mad, but these files are large enough that the extra space consumed would be a bother to sysadmins. 2. Conversely, there are people who CAN'T view graphics files, who nonetheless have to pay to carry them right now because they are lumped in with unrelated -- but desired - material. Pictures are not the same as programs, so some comp.binaries moderators may dislike having them submitted; worse yet are the discussion groups like rec.startrek where X% of readers have nothing but VT100s! GIF is totally useless to them, and bound to remain so. The two big advantages, then, of comp.binaries.gif would be (a) it would allow GIF-capable users on ALL kinds of machines to share a common pool of pictures; and (b) it would insulate NON-GIF-capable sites from the comm burden of carrying pictures -- they could turn off the group at their discretion. I suppose if we created this group, then comp.binaries.gif.d would kind of have to happen to, because users are still learning how to view GIF from what I can see in the message base. Well this is longer than I intended, but those are the issues. Dunno if Gene would prefer your comments posted here or mailed to me, but I will "fer sure" summarize anything I do get in the mail. Thanks for listening. -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: are you kidding?
Mike_Wiley-E-Coyote_Neff@cup.portal.com (05/15/88)
> This is a request for COMMENT on creating a new group: comp.binaries.gif. > This is NOT a request for votes - let's discuss it first. > > Anyway, we are starting to see a fair volume of GIF files posted to the > net, along with programs to view them. I am proposing that we create a > newsgroup just for the picture (xxxx.gif) files themselves;... ^^^^^^^^ Thanks for posting this Tom. As a poster of some GIF files I was thinking of posting a similar posting myself. I fully support creation of a new newgroup. However, let's not stop and limit it to GIF format files. How about calling it something like comp.binaries.image or something like that. I also believe that GIF is the most popular format at present. However, there are a number of other graphic formats such as TIFF, IFF, Macpaint, postscript, etc. that cross different machine boundaries like GIF does that would benefit from being placed in this newsgroup. As graphic image standards progress and perhaps we get standards that become superior to GIF ( support more than 8 bit color colormaps, better compression algorithms than LZW ), the group comp.binaries.image could grow into these standards. The format of the file could be placed in the subject line of the header. > here are my > two main reasons: > > 1. Right now people tend to post GIF files to the .sys or .bin newsgroup > for *their* brand of computer, be it Mac, Amiga or whatever. Thus people > with other makes who COULD view them, don't see them because they unsubscribe > to the foreign groups. We could ask everybody to crosspost like mad, but > these files are large enough that the extra space consumed would be a bother > to sysadmins. Yes! Also, since they are posted in different newsgroups, even if an ibm pc user goes into the comp.binaries.mac group for instance, the GIF postings in that group might have been translated using binhex as opposed to uuencode. By having one newsgroup we could hopefully have one method of translation ( read on... ). > 2. Conversely, there are people who CAN'T view graphics files, who > nonetheless have to pay to carry them right now because they are lumped in > with unrelated -- but desired - material. Pictures are not the same as > programs, so some comp.binaries moderators may dislike having them submitted; > worse yet are the discussion groups like rec.startrek where X% of readers > have nothing but VT100s! GIF is totally useless to them, and bound to > remain so. > > The two big advantages, then, of comp.binaries.gif would be (a) it would > allow GIF-capable users on ALL kinds of machines to share a common pool > of pictures; and (b) it would insulate NON-GIF-capable sites from the > comm burden of carrying pictures -- they could turn off the group at their > discretion. Good points. I also believe that we should consider moderation of this group. This would help postings in the following ways: 1. This person could regulate the flow of postings since the size of postings would probably be large enough to create network traffic problems if enough were posted at the same time. 2. The moderator could screen the files for potentially objectionable content and could add warnings to or censor the files where necessary. 3. The moderator could screen the files for errors to prevent costly reposts of files that were munged. 4. The moderator could translate more obscure file formats to something like GIF so that more machine architectures could view them unless the poster would request otherwise. 5. The moderator could ensure that the files would all be uuencoded ( if this were agreed upon as the translation method of choice ) as opposed to being zooed or binhexed or the like. 6. The moderator could ensure that no copyright violations would be broken for images stating copyrights in the picture ( not immediately obvious without uudecoding and viewing ). 7. If possible the moderator could be located at a site where he/she could keep these images in an area where they could be obtained through anonymous ftp. > I suppose if we created this group, then comp.binaries.gif.d would kind of > have to happen to, because users are still learning how to view GIF from > what I can see in the message base. I like this idea too. > > Well this is longer than I intended, but those are the issues. Dunno if > Gene would prefer your comments posted here or mailed to me, but I will > "fer sure" summarize anything I do get in the mail. Thanks for listening. > > -- > Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff > "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF > will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: are you kidding? Tom, where are your relatives originally from? Mike Neff, alias "Coyote" Coyote@cup.portal.com
laba-4an@web4d.berkeley.edu (Andy McFadden) (05/16/88)
It's about time a group like this was started up. Almost every .binaries group on the net has been getting GIF, IFF, or some other format of pictures. Program mailing lists have been distributing them. There has been no indication that this trend is going to decrease, so I think it's about time to create one. Also: if there is an archive site, it would be possible to put a generic GIF viewer for every kind of architecture. I've been scanning comp.binaries.ibm.pc for GIF pictures, and have noticed about 15 different postings of GIF viewers. -- laba-4an@widow.berkeley.edu (Andy McFadden)
vg55611@ihuxy.ATT.COM (Gopal) (05/16/88)
Yes, let's create a new group for gif and other format picture files ! How about naming it comp.pics, though ? Let the readers of the group decide later on about whether to split it into .gif, .tiff, whether to moderate etc. Venu P Gopal ihnp4!ihuxy!vg55611
las@apr.UUCP (Larry Shurr) (05/17/88)
Yes. Let's create a gif (or pictures) group. I have collected 5 gif
viewers, but I have only 1 gif picture (blastoff)! I haven't time to
spelunk for all the gif pictures I hear are being posted. I may have
missed many of the alleged postings due to running out of file system
space at our site (again).
regards, Larry
--
Who: Larry A. Shurr (cbosgd!osu-cis!apr!las or try {cbosgd,ihnp4}!cbcp1!las)
What: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
Where: _The Portrait of Dorian Gray_ - Oscar Wilde
Disclaimer: The above is not necessarily the opinion of APR or any APR client.bturner@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill Turner) (05/18/88)
I also vote for comp.pics, rather than starting out with one per each type of file. --Bill Turner
wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) (05/21/88)
In article <2528@ihuxy.ATT.COM>, vg55611@ihuxy.ATT.COM (Gopal) writes: > Yes, let's create a new group for gif and other format picture files ! > How about naming it comp.pics, though ? Yup, that would be my preference, too. As a precedent, there is a special interest group on CompuServe call pics. In fact, that is where GIF originated. Besides, comp.pics is easy to type. :-) -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043