# Re: Images from a server?

Jim Graham (flar@bendenweyr.eng.sun.com)
Thu, 2 Oct 1997 23:23:41 -0700 (PDT)

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    Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 23:23:41 -0700 (PDT)

    From: Jim Graham <flar@bendenweyr.eng.sun.com>

    Subject: Re: Images from a server?

    To: java-security@web2.javasoft.com

This was posted to the java2d-interest mailing list. In the last paragraph,
Peter mentions "security problems with Java" as a partial reason to consider
other alternatives for the suggested application of Java.

...jim

------------- Begin Forwarded Message -------------

Date: Thu, 2 Oct 97 21:34 PDT
From: "L. Peter Deutsch" <ghost@aladdin.com>
To: donpark@quake.net
CC: ivo@hasc.com, java2d-interest@Sun.COM
Subject: Re: Images from a server?

> PNG was not an option because Netscape does not support PNG.

I was told second-hand that Unisys had browbeat Netscape into thinking that
the deflate compression method used in PNG might conceivably be affected by
the Welch patent, and Netscape caved in by not supporting PNG -- despite the
fact that W3 either has approved or is far along the track to approving PNG
as a Web image format on a par with GIF. Whether or not this story is true,
the claim is b*llsh*t. The LZ77 method used in zlib and PNG was published
in the open literature before the Welch patent was filed or LZW was invented
(in fact, the LZW method covered by the Welch patent is a derivative of the
original LZ algorithm), and has been extensively researched against the
patent data base.

> PNG also does not have multiple frame support for animation.

Are you sure? I haven't read the PNG spec lately, but I thought you could
concatenate multiple PNG images in a single file.

> PNG with embeddable Java
> class support would be great for totally open graphics storage format.

Given the security problems with Java and the non-ubiquity of Java
implementations (and the lack of good, or perhaps any, free ones), I think
it is still very important to solidify some reasonable raster and vector
storage formats without executable code, in addition to formats that can
include executable content (for which I agree Java is the obvious good
choice). Unfortunately, the industry still seems to be diverging even in
the area of raster formats: FlashPix and PNG are new, and while I can't
evaluate the need for the former (it seems very complicated and to drag in
an amazing number of what are basically OS file system functions), I can't
help but think that adding zlib compression to TIFF would have been a better
approach than the latter. As for vector formats, CGM has been around for a
long time and is not that bad, but I think a format with a more modern
graphics model would be better, and PDF or something close to it seems like
the obvious good choice to me.

    --

    L. Peter Deutsch         |       Aladdin Enterprises :::: ghost@aladdin.com
    203 Santa Margarita Ave. | tel. +1-650-322-0103 (AM only); fax +1-650-322-1734
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    Menlo Park, CA 94025     |        http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/index.html
                "Few things are impossible to diligence and skill."

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