Re: JPS Windows only Club or Vendor only Club

[P3D Jonathan Gross <catalyst@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Larry Berlin Wrote:
> If you wish to criticize file types, we could get to talking about the NEO
> file type which is inaccessible to anyone other than your specific
> customers. Now that's worth criticizing. ;-) Despite it's obvious good
> points, it's a totally restricted members-only kind of club. Doesn't do the
> *public* much good at all!

Thank you for acknowledging the unspecified "obvious good points" of the
.neo file format which provide solutions to a number of problems
specific to stereo image pairs.

The difference is that in none of my postings have I ever advocated
anybody adopting the .neo format as a standard for posting stereoscopic
images on the Web. None.  If you think that is what I am suggesting that
.neo become a standard, then you are mistaken (even though there are
several distinct advantages of the .neo format relative to JPS).  Just
because I am not interested in joining your club, doesnt mean that I
want you to join mine.  You are welcome to join, but I dont feel as
compelled as you do to enlist everybody.

My original request was simple:  I encoraged list member to request that
the Mars photos be posted as stereo pairs because then everybody can use
them.  Alexander Klein understands that.  It was actually two other list
members who posted the original "Windows Only Club" entry, and I
answered them by explaining that JPEG viewers work on JPS files, if you
can get at the JPS files.  Paul Talbot understood and fixed that one.

Actually, I'm not criticizing the JPS file format characteristics so
much as the process by which it was created, and the efforts to
establish it as a "standard".

Contrary to what is being implied by yours and other's comments on my
postings, I am not against standards.  I love JPEG (all flavors), TIFF
(all levels), BMP (OS/2 and Windows), PCD (even though I can read it,
but not create it), EPS, PCX,  TGA, GIF,  MAC, PIC, AVI, RAW, MPEG (1 &
2), PNG, PPB, CGM, DXF, WMF, VRL, and the many, many others which I just
forget right now.

The publics problem is not a lack of standards, but a proliferation of
them.

So, before I support, yet-another "public standard", I feel that the
effected community should:

1)  Establish a set of REQUIREMENTS which are open to review.
2)  Create a set of alternative proposals which are subject to public
review.
3)  Let an open committee with broad representation select the standard.
4)  Publish the standard, and establish a schedule for review and
update.

JPS is not a public standard, or even, as far as I can tell, a defacto
standard.  JPS does not address a number of important issues specific to
stereoscopic pairs, to high quality electronic imaging, and to copyright
protection.

Pardon me if I dont support JPS right now.  BTW, Im NOT asking you to
adopt .neo as a replacement for JPS either.

Jon Gross


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