Like Gif not Jif as is right and proper 
No, the fact that he created it means that he, not the public at large, not OED, gets to decide how it’s pronounced.
This whole argument makes as much sense as claiming Qantas should be pronounced kahtas because hey, you know, Qatar and Qazvin.
Exactly. I think it’s one time where the inventor of the thing got it wrong. If he wanted the “jiffy” image format, he should have just named it that.
I’m going to ignore it like we all ignored the LZW patent. (including him)
That’s why I’m part Grrrrman and not Jerman.
“Germanic” was not originally a Germanic word: it was originally a Latin word.
(And I say “GIF” like “gift” without the “t”)
Is that even germane?
I pronounce it “jif” because I heard like 10 years ago that was the correct way.
But I try not to pronounce it at all. Why is anybody still using GIF when PNG (which is “pee-en-jee”, never “ping”) exists? I guess the same reason people try to make databases in Excel.
punguh.
“Bitmap”. .bmp is bitmap, and I’ve believed this since long before my home was in a Blvd, pronounced “boulevard”, not bliv’d. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to head up to Mt Everest to see a Dr.
And it’s hard g “Gif” like in gift, the creator be damned.
I pronounce it flurmpterbershaw, but now realize that is completely wrong.
I pronounce it O b s o l e t e.
256 colors doesn’t cut it anymore.
/ɢaɪf/
If it catches on I plan to start a controversy over ɢ- vs j-.
Exactly this. When you see the word, it looks like it’s pronounced with an unambiguous hard G. It’s how everybody around me pronounced it when I first learned of the term (in the mid 90s), and how most of the world pronounces it.
I also pronounce Linux as “linnix” for the same reason; it’s how everybody around me pronounced it*.
*Including its inventor, even though his name is (and pronounced as) Linus
Actually, his name is pronounced pretty much like the name of the OS with an S instead of an X on the end. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds (Click the ‘listen’ link)
I pronounce it with a hard G. Pronouncing it with a soft G would imply the spelling JIF. With abbreviations, you always go with the least ambiguous pronunciation. The only reason why there are multiple pronunciations for letters is a historical accident–it’s stupid to replicate that imprecision in newly coined words with no historical baggage.
How the creator pronounces thing might be useful as a guide, but it’s not the be-all end-all pronunciation. I don’t know how many creators insist that their abbreviations be spelled out or not pronounced at all, but people constantly disregard that. Giff is a more useful pronunciation that Jiff, so that’s what we use.
Maybe at some point in the past, Jiff was correct. But now it’s Giff, and it has been for a long time. The creator’s pronunciation lost because it was stupid. And now he’s just whining about that, probably because it gets him and “his” file format back into the news. (The patent is expired, I believe, so it doesn’t really belong to him anymore.)
And if you think GIFs are obsolete then you are very ill informed. Yes, there are animated PNGs, but they still haven’t taken off. GIF is still the go-to file format for short animations with transparency.
Gee Eye Eff. Multisyllabic words don’t scare me. You are ell. Enn eff ell. Sea enn enn.
An example of a case where a word pronounced with a soft g (followed by i) is misspelled by someone who has apparently never seen it in writing. The tendency is to assume it’s a j. So that’s why I pronounce GIF with a hard g (as I noted earlier).
Eff Eye Gee - I’m dyslexic
I’ve been on the internet since 1989, and I’ve always pronounced it like jiff. It’s nice to have proof that that’s what the inventor intended.
As an aside, who the fuck came up with the conventions of “hard” and “soft” letters which always seem to be to be ass-backward?
A gentle “guh” sound, requiring the input of only the tongue and upper mouth, is soft, like a pillow.
An aggressive “juh” sound, requiring teeth clicking together, is hard, like nails.
So why is guh hard, and juh, soft? Who’s the dick who determined that I would never be able to use common sense in figuring out which is hard and which is soft, and to insure that I would always have to stop and think about it that it’s exactly the opposite of the way it should be? I would like to slap him.
Just to note that around here “Jif” is an abrasive cleaning product (possibly called Cif or Vim depending on where other 'Dopers are). You’re not likely to confuse it with peanut butter, but just in case you’re traveling in the Antipodes don’t put Jif on your sandwiches. 
And to the OP: Gif, as in Graphics, but I agree that “obsolete” is a decent option.
I don’t know how “hard” and “soft” came to be used the way they are, but if you pronouncing a j by clicking your teeth together then you’re doing it wrong.