On Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:12:50 +0100, Ilmari Karonen <nospam(a)vyznev.net>
wrote:
Nathaniel wrote:
I hope this is the right place to ask this
question: is there a
technical
reason for not hosting TIFF files on Wikimedia servers? Commons forbids
them, and apparently has since the beginning. However, it would be
helpful
for Wikisource if TIFF files of scans of public domain works could be
uploaded and used for proofreading and/or archival.
What do you need TIFF files for that PNG can't handle?
I'm genuine interested; there are things the TIFF format can do that PNG
can't, but I'd like to know which features you need and why.
I would guess the ability to include multiple "pages" in one file. If you
scan a 1000 page book most document scanners will let you save it as a
single multi-page TIFF file, and that is a heck of a lot easier to upload
than 1000 PGN images would be.
Converting to PDF seems like a easy workaround for that though. Not quite
sure why TIFF's are outright banned on Commons, security conserns maybe
(it's aparently a bit prone to buffer overrun attacks)? As far as I can
tell there are no licensing or patent issues with the format.
--
[[:en:User:Sherool]]