2004.10.01 17:19 "Re: [Tiff] Re: BigTIFF extension issue", by Steve Carlsen

I also agree with Joris, though not without misgivings. We will be making alot of pain for folks who don't understand why their .tif extentioned filed fail to open with TIFF reading applications.

Yes, this is true; using ".tf8" or ".btf" would be 'clearer.'

Nevertheless, I don't really mind using ".tif", especially if developers on this list and any other developers we can influence would attempt to use guidelines for new releases such as:

When writing a BigTIFF file, we let the user know, with a warning something like:

"Given the file size, note that you are creating a special "Big" TIFF file, which may be incompatible with some applications."

When readers encounter such a file, if we can't deal with it yet, we let the user know in some helpful way such as "This type of TIFF file is not yet supported." rather than just reporting "Unknown Format" or some such thing.

-SteveC