2007.07.01 17:12 "[Tiff] Re: BigTIFF extension issue", by Bob Friesenhahn

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