2008.07.03 18:19 "Re: [Tiff] eta for bigtiff support?", by Stephen Carlsen

Hi Gary,

In case it is helpful to you, Joris, or whomever, there exists a document that purports to be a synthesis of "Classic TIFF" and "Big TIFF" and may at least be a good starting point for updated documentation. It is currently in web form, since it seemed to me that this was the most natural way to include up-to-date links to important places like http://lists.maptools.org, but a PDF equivalent could be easily generated.

        http://tiffcentral.com

Though I do work for Adobe, the document / web site is neither sponsored by or connected with Adobe in any way. I just felt that there should be some central specification-oriented TIFF information site.

If you all think it's a good idea, I'll keep the site up. If you don't, I'll kill it.

Best regards,
Stephen

There's a reason for the lack of feedback. The documentation at http://www.awaresystems.be/imaging/tiff/bigtiff.html says:

>>>>This is a proposal, not a specification. Don't go implementing it just

>>> >yet and releasing your code to the public, it has not yet been approved

>>> >and is liable to change. You don't want to be the one whose files turn

>>> >out invalid in 6 months from now.

It shouldn't be surprising that people aren't jumping in to test when the definition of BigTIFF is still in flux, and has shown no sign of approaching a stable specification.

The specification is not in flux - however, clearly some of the documentation and web site materials have not been kept up to date and are off-putting to adoption.

Joris - can you address some of this?

Yes, please. Approval by a major standards body or by Adobe would be very nice, but what's vital is public information that's available for reference. For instance, when the Global Digital Format Registry goes public, we're going to want to point to a document somewhere that says, "This is what the format is." If the documentation says it's only a draft and that no one should rely on its stability, people will take it at its word and avoid any serious use of the format.