[Coco] [Color Computer] RE: DjVu misconceptions

[James Diffendaffer]

> Clearly you are humor impaired...my apologies for adding to the
 misery in your life.

<groan>  You're a legend in your own mind John.

"Sarcasm is the making of remarks intended to mock the person
referred to"

Humor wasn't intended.  You are making wild claims against the format,
attacking people that support it and seem to be more interested in
feeding your ego than a rational discussion.  

Claims were made DjVu isn't supported on anything but a web browser
plugin.  Nope... not true.

Claims were made it was Windows only... Nope... not true.  

The format is brand new... Nope.

Patent encombered... just like PDF and the patents start to expire in
a couple years.  Saying legal action will take place now is absurd
since they publicly announced the change in license terms.  They
wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court unless you violate the terms
of the license.  For any commercial project you need to read the fine
print of any license agreement.

Then there was the whole thing about you needing to keep an old
machine just so you could view documents stored in a dead format...
uh... yeah... whatever.  

> Still, even your own results reveals the disparity in prevalence.

And???  Didn't you see the <sarcasm> </sarcasm> tags around the text?
Google is a search engine and PDF allowed free licensing a decade
ago... not just recently like DjVu.  

Claims were made it's obscure but you refuse to define what the
magical number is that would show when it's no longer obscure.
Who needs to adopt the format before it's mainstream?
Which definition of obscruity anyway?  There are over 1.6 million
google hits, info pages on wikipedia... info certainly isn't "hard to
find" if a person actually looks.
Uncommon would be accurate, not widely adopted...  but obscure? 
Clouded by darkness... sounds ominous but I'm not sure it's accurate.

It takes time for people to adopt new formats.  Adoption of DjVu was
hampered by corporate vision that if you have a superior technology
people will pay absurd license fees for it.  What they were charging
for the software to build DjVu files is not something that you or I
could afford.  Lizard Tech took the approach that if you make it
affordable, they will come.


>  I suspect that may be the case for those advocating djvu as
well...)

Emotional???  Over a file format???  LOL.. no.  If decent PDFs would
fit on one disk I could care less.

You on the other hand "refuse to install anything on your computer
that isn't already there".  That sounds kinda emotional to me.  And
"adding to the misery of your life" blah blah blah.  Insecurity I
presume?  Were you picked on by the other kids or something?  

Look, I've compared the formats before and for everything *I* tested,
DjVu compresses better for the same quality, zooms better (PDF scales
individual pixes as vector graphics... which just gives you bigger
pixels when you zoom in) and most importantly to me... actually gives
a one or very few DVD distro a chance.

Just remember that additional disks don't just cost what a disk
costs... it includes additional labor, lables, packaging, possibly
additional shipping costs... you get the idea.  8 disks could cost
half again what a single disk will.  I love the old CoCo but that has
it's limits.

> You seem to think that djvu is the up-and-coming thing.  Maybe so,
although I see no evidence of such.

This from the guy that won't even install the viewer.

> The point is, you have a choice between a standard that is
overwhelmingly popular now and almost certainly will remain broadly
available,
> versus one that most people have to go out of their way to view
today and which may be harder to read tomorrow.  Do you get the point?

I don't know about you but when I set up my machine I had to download
a PDF viewer.  I have had to download codecs to play videos on popular
web sites, Flash, Quicktime, and then there are updates.

And you offer the ever present DjVu is goind to die argument over and
over again... or should I say "the sky is falling"?
So what you are saying is that a format with obvious benefits is going
to just up and die?  The open source projects will disappear, the
Princton document arcives will dissapear, the Jewish document archives
will dissapear, the... oh never mind.  

The CoCo hasn't died even though a new one hasn't been produced in
over a decade but a file format with open source projects will just
die overnight?  Does that really sound rational to you?

I know what your point is... you don't want to install anything that
isn't already on your machine.  You said that.

Why am I so sure the format will stick around?
What would really cause DjVu to take off as a format?
Expiration of the patents and Porn.
The ability to download high-res porn as smaller files that can be
zoomed without loss of detail... well, you figure it out.
That alone is why I'm sure DjVu will be around for some time.
JPEG can't match the compression for the same quality.
Even JPEG2000 doesn't match it. 
Yup... porn will keep it around.
Porn drove the adoption of the VCR and kept Beta around for decades.
Porn drove the early adoption of the DVD.
Porn has also been credited for the adoption of broadband.
A multi-billion dollar industry.
If Lizard Tech has any clue they will target the porn industry.






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