9 Mar
2012
9 Mar
'12
5:16 p.m.
On 03/09/2012 04:02 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
I was trying to suggest that replacing one
"closed file format"
(difficult-to-read floppies) with another is a really bad idea.
Well, it takes time and effort, but if the first format is at risk of
becoming unreadable then there is some merit in doing it.
What doesn't make sense to me is going from one closed format to another
when I could go from a closed format to an open one (assuming that the open
one meets my needs equally).
What I'd really like to see in files for preservation - now that storage is
cheap and plentiful - is the spec for the format itself embedded at the
start of the file. If I'm faced with an unknown file format I usually poke
around it with an editor for clues as to what it might be, so having the
spec right there in plain English would be useful. (And we've had that
discussion on the list before, and yes, it does rely on future generations
being able to read English and ASCII being a sensible way of recording it)
cheers
Jules