Stephen Wilhite was an American computer scientist, mostly known as the inventor/creator of the
GIF.
Wilhite worked at CompuServe/AOL most of his life, involved in a variety of systems. These included file transfer protocols, web chat software, and investigating web community models. However, his biggest dent in the computing world was attained in 1987, when he was leading the engineering team that adapted the GIF image file format.
Earliest web browser adopted the format in 1991 and that helped make it a few years later the most popular image file format. We’re now in 2022 and the format is still heavily use in website design, social media posts, and many other places.
Equally known and a common running joke is the debate of its pronunciation. Even though the Oxford English Dictionary accepts both
hard and soft G pronunciations, Wilhite has said:
“They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G’, pronounced ‘jif’. End of story.”
Unfortunately, the recent sad news: Stephen Wilhite recently died of COVID-19, at the age of 74.
Further reading
Given his achievements, there is only one way to close this issue: