RE: [DRAFT] QA Tips - Gif versus PNG

> > >
> > > This is a draft Open for comments for future publications Draft - 
> > > PNG vs GIF
> >
> > <http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/png-gif>
> >
> > I suggest we move this Tip out of draft status. I think 
> Alex had a few 
> > remarks about it, and is welcome to suggest rewordings, but 
> otherwise 
> > it seems the Tip was well received.
> >
> > Karl, Alex, are you agreeable to this?
> 
> I am not in a position to agree or disagree with draft status 
> changes. I am just an outside reviewer. I find it annoying 
> that explicitly solicited and specific comments are 
> "addressed"  by a "write specific fixes!" response. Please do 
> not expect me to become a co-author of this 10-sentence tip 
> by contributing specific text.
> 
> As of today, the draft still contains stale text ("expires in 
> the USA on June 20, 2003"). The draft is still missing any 
> information regarding patent expiration dates in countries 
> other than US.
> 
> My overall comment remains the same: either the draft should 
> be made balanced OR the strong but implicit preference 
> towards PNGs should be made explicit. The draft reads like a 
> piece of FUD against GIF, and I expect better from a W3C QA tip.
> 
> Finally, there are no tips in this draft. A "tip" is a 
> suggestion, advice, or recommendation. The draft does not 
> contain any, does it?


I think I'd agree with Alex.

It's becoming unclear to me with the QA group is the technical marketing
wing of W3C or an honest balanced broker of advice, covering legitimate
concerns over deployment issues.   
 
I would prefer the latter approach (I think the former approach will
lead to dangers of W3C being marginalised - a sentiment I hear fairly
frequently).

To be specific I'd suggest something like:

Deployment of PNG has been hindered by the lack of support in browsers.
However modern browsers do provide support for PNG.  Before deploying
PNG you should ensure that it will be usable by the browsers which
access your site [1].  An alternative approach, used on the W3C Web
site, is use of content negotiation, so that older browsers will receive
a GIF but modern browsers the PNG equivalent.

[1] give reference to list of supporting and non-supporting browser
[2] give reference to details of how to implement this.

Brian
---------------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus
UKOLN
University of Bath 
BATH
BA2 7AY
Email: B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
Web: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Phone: 01225 383943


> Alex.
> 
> P.S. I am not a GIF advocate or anything. FWIW, Factory software
>      that makes reports from test results uses PNGs by default. I am
>      just doing QA on the draft, nothing else.
> 
>

Received on Friday, 17 October 2003 12:24:13 UTC