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Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 12:12:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us>
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Subject: [Tiff] Re: BigTIFF extension issue
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Status: RO

Way back in 2004 there was a long discussion of what extension to use 
for BigTIFF (see http://www.asmail.be/msg0055326857.html). 
Re-reading this discussion, I see a lot of good points, but don't see 
any obvious conclusion.  It seems like a case of allowing the 
market/users to decide.

I have started to update my application to support BigTIFF.  I am 
happy to support the extension ".tiff" but of course there are other 
proposals.  Initially, it does not seem like anyone will be casually 
writing BigTIFF files since Classic TIFF (TM) provides assured 
coverage to at least 2GB file sizes (and often 4GB) and users of large 
files know who they are and will explicitly decide to use BigTIFF. 
This means that it will take time before BigTIFF files are encountered 
in "the wild".

Given the state of the computing universe, does anyone care about 
three character file extensions any more?  Are there systems still in 
use (reasonably expected to encounter a BigTIFF file) which make their 
format decisions based on a three character extension, or is this 
behavior now effectively extinct?

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/

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