I don’t think technical standards merit the same level of “deference to the creator” as personal names. People are wrong about standards they created all the time (ask me what I think about John Gruber’s “stewardship” of Markdown) and should be corrected, a standard is meant for all. Obviously the pronunciation of an acronym isn’t anywhere near as important as technical details, but I think the principle holds.
A child is presumably a sentient being, and at some point in their life should gain control of their name. In fact, they do, to some large degree. There are means to change one's legal name, or one can diverge from their legal name and professionally/publicly use a completely different name.
A file format is not a sentient being. The creator's intent matters much more. If GIF had sentience and could voice a desire one way or the other, the whole discussion would be moot as it would clearly be disrespectful to intentionally mispronounce the name.
