2001.10.03 19:05 "OJPEG & Wang Images (long)", by Scott Marovich

2001.12.02 22:30 "Re: OJPEG & Wang Images (long)", by Tom Lane

It has been more than five years since TTN#2 appeared and I feel that it is about time that it were ratified. So instead of jumping to a major new specification, can we not at least publish a minor revision and perhaps call it 6.1 or something like that?

The problem is that we (meaning the people who read this list) are not in a position to do that. Adobe owns the copyright on the TIFF spec and is not interested in publishing an update.

I have it on very good authority that there is a completed TIFF 7.0 spec languishing on some dusty shelf inside Adobe, but it'll never see the light of day unless Adobe changes policy.

The only solution I could see is for someone to write an all-new spec document (using none of Adobe's copyrighted text) for a new file format FOOBAR (choose some name that doesn't infringe Adobe's copyright on the name TIFF) that just happens to be 100% upward compatible with TIFF 6.0. Then try to get it blessed by some standards organization --- W3C would be a good bet, I suspect. Sounds like a lot of work, and who knows whether the big companies would pay any attention?

regards, tom lane
organizer, Independent JPEG Group