Gregory's Server@dragosr @chris To think; "XBM" and "XPM" formats were the ones that they thought made the most sense to support initially. I've been involved with computers and the web for 30+ years, and I don't recall ever using those formats for anything. TIFF? sure. BMP? absolutely. GIF? Obviously. I even remember how revolutionary it was when I discovered JPG on a BBS. XBM/XPM? Not at all.
@cgrymala @dragosr @chris it’s a while ago, so I may misremember, but I think this was because xpm and xbm were among the very few image formats without patent encumberments. A lot of software used those formats internally, so it’s not surprising that you didn’t interact with them as files, though.
Most of the image formats you know now are more popular now because of combinations of patents expiring and more permissive licenses (read and display not having a royalty, for example)