[odf-discuss] A story of TIFF

[marbux]

Hi, Daniel,

Do you have proposal for mapping all of the ODF to Microsoft Office
that does not require MIcrosoft's cooperation? Or any alternative to
declaring an MS Office interoperability subset that can enable
interop?

Also, I think your analogy to TIFF is inapt. You describe a
specification that grew like topsy and became so complex that full
support became infeasible.  I see no facts stated that support your
conclusion that it was the declaration of interop subsets that led to
TIFF's downfall. The way you have described it, it seems to have been
the infeasibility of full application support for the spec that was
its downfall. What am I missing?

I also perceive no suggestion of how ODF interop (not just fidelity)
might be achieved for: [i] Microsoft Office; and [ii] the example
given of outliners, absent declaration of subsets.

Do you have any suggestions in those regards?

Best regards,

Marbux


On 2/2/07, Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at zmsl.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'd like to tell a story. It's a sad story. It's a story about a file
> format called TIFF.
>
> TIFF was developed in the mid 1980s, as an attempt to get desktop
> scanner vendors to agree on a common scanned image file format, rather
> than have each company promulgate its own proprietary format. In the
> beginning, TIFF was a simple format. It didn't do much, but it did what
> it was supposed to do.
>
> But time passed. Scanners became more powerful, and as desktop computer
> disk space became more plentiful. And TIFF grew to accommodate grayscale
> images, then color images. TIFF grew to accommodate Postcript. Some
> vendors wanted vector drawings, so TIFF grew to accommodate that too.
> TIFF grew to accommodate multiple images, and even foreign file formats
> like JPEG and RLE. TIFF grew outside just images, to include clipping
> paths, for cropping, along with frames, layers and pages. It seemed like
> everyone wanted their own special tag in the TIFF spec. It was a format
> of absolute, 100% perfect fidelity. If you could describe it, TIFF could
> do it. Heck, you can even specify your preferred *byte ordering* in
> TIFF.
>
> Gone were the days of data loss. TIFF marked a new era of absolute,
> loss-less image perfection. Everyone would use TIFF, and fidelity would
> be perfect. 100% fidelity. Always.
>
> But as TIFF grew, more and more vendors felt unable to support all of
> it. TIFF became unmanageable. Its number of options, staggering. That's
> when vendors decided to implement "interoperability subsets". They would
> pick and choose which parts of TIFF were relevant to them, and ignore
> the others. Some vendors could not implement LZW compression, due to
> patent restrictions, so they didn't. Some vendors saw no need to support
> Postscript or SVG. Other vendors only wanted Postscript or SVG.
>
> "Interoperability subsets" was TIFF's downfall. The mismatch in TIFF
> support through out "TIFF compliant" applications is staggering. And
> today, the only TIFF file that you can make and expect to work elsewhere
> is an un-compressed raw-data TIFF.
>
> Don't be a TIFF.
>
> Daniel.
> --
> May you live in interesting times.
> May people in high places take notice of you.
> May all your wishes come true.
>   -- Chinese curse.
>
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