2007.07.03 18:37 "[Tiff] BigTIFF extension?", by Phil Harvey

2007.07.05 04:54 "RE: [Tiff] BigTIFF extension", by Stephen Carlsen

I know, it's not really different, in an absolute sense (though with Big TIFF, a (Classic) TIFF reader can't iterate over any tags at all.)

Regarding version numbers: the TIFF 'version number' has never really been a version number. I don't think that it is called that anywhere in the TIFF spec. TIFF was actually purposely designed to _not_ have a version number, in any classic sense. All that the spec says about it is that Bytes 2-3 contain "An arbitrary but carefully chosen number (42) that further identifies the file as a TIFF file."

Nevertheless, I am not violently opposed to calling these things TIFF/".tif" files. I realize that there are advantages in doing so. There are clearly costs and benefits either way. Our job, I think, is to figure out the best cost/benefit tradeoff.

_any_ TIFF reader has to iterate over quite a number of tags to determine whether it's capable of handling a particular file - I fail to see how this is in _any_ way different.