I beg to differ! It is said with A HARD g, not a soft g. Show me an English word beginning with a g followed by a short i that uses a soft g. Gift, girl, give, gimp, gill, gilt, gibbon... Some words do use a soft g, such as gibberish. The vast majority, however, use the hard g.

Consider this, the acronym is for graphics interchange format. Please tell me where the soft g comes from?

Finally, the peanut butter maker J. M. Smucker Company named their product Jif, which is different from gif. I rest my case.