Re: [svgwg] [svg-native] "SVG Native" isn't a great name (#667)

"encapsulated" is an established term in the context of "encapsulated PostScript" (.eps) documents.

Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on how closely our goals for this format match with the restrictions on EPS.

I'm not an expert on the distinctions between EPS and full PostScript, so I turned to Wikipedia, which offers [the following summary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encapsulated_PostScript):

> Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions which is intended to be usable as a graphics file format. In other words, EPS files are more-or-less self-contained, reasonably predictable PostScript documents that describe an image or drawing and can be placed within another PostScript document. Simply, an EPS file is a PostScript program, saved as a single file that includes a low-resolution preview "encapsulated" inside of it, allowing some programs to display a preview on the screen.

The first two sentences almost directly describe what we want for this format. So far, so good. But if the word "encapsulated" is supposed to refer to the pre-rasterized thumbnail encapsulated inside the vector file, that's a conflict. We're definitely not talking about doing that.

So, the question is: do most designers know that the "encapsulated" part of EPS is the embedded thumbnail? Or has usage shifted enough from the original name that people just understand "encapsulated" to mean "self-contained image file"?

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Received on Wednesday, 1 May 2019 16:34:17 UTC