The UK's V3 news site reports that the Vatican library considers open source file formats to be the only reliable way for humanity to preserve its history in the digital age.
Vatican Library CIO Luciano Ammenti said that, in order for the manuscripts to be readable, the Vatican Library opted for open source tools that do not require proprietary platforms, such as Microsoft Office, to be read.
"We save it as a picture as it's longer life than a file. You don't rely on PowerPoint or Word. In 50 years they can still just look at it," he said.
"Normally people try to use the TIFF format [when archiving]. This has several problems. It's not open source and it doesn't update. The last time was in 1998.
"On top of this it's 32-bit and not ready for 3D imaging, which limits the information it can preserve - what the script's made of etc. So instead we use the FITS format. FITS is open source, 64-bit, 3D ready and updated regularly. It gives all the information you need on the image."
What formats have you found best for archiving? Which have given you problems?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 08 2015, @07:26PM
HTML5 is no standard. It is a moving target mislabelled as standard.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Friday May 08 2015, @07:41PM
THe point being, that HTML5 is bringing some much needed updates. We'd be stuck with flash without it.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!