A RAW repository, The Internet Archive and OpenRAW

Stan writes "I just read this in the OpenRAW mailing list, OpenRAW plans to create a RAW repository, a final resting place for RAW file documentations of current and already abandoned digital cameras. The RAW repository will be hosted in the Internet Archive, which describes themselves as a digital archive of the Internet and other cultural artifacts. And they have all reasons to support OpenRAW, they currently photograph billions of book pages with cameras and store them in RAW format. Unfortunately the camera makers think different (which is not always a good thing)."

Comments

Digital == Loss of freedom

[Dancin_Santa]

I'm not going to say I told you so, but I told you so. The minute you give up the physical artifact and rely on a digital representation of your data, you are at the risk of any company who wishes to exert some control over the format of that data. That's why all those RAW file formats for each camera are different from company to company. They gain the most benefit by locking you into a certain piece of software and forcing you along their upgrade path.

If you stick with film, you are only limited in your ability to develop your own negatives. If you can do this, you will be able to continue with film for as long as you want. Scan the negs and save them in whatever format you want. It doesn't matter because the actual physical artifact is still in your possession.

Not so with Digital.

In many ways, digital is superior to film. However, when it comes to ownership of your data, you are far better off with film than you ever can be with digital.

Re:Digital == Loss of freedom

[phidipides]

They gain the most benefit by locking you into a certain piece of software and forcing you along their upgrade path.

Just to nitpick a bit, most of the professional photographers I know use the various plugins to Photoshop to work with RAW images, so technically they aren't being forced into an upgrade path by the camera manufacturers. I personally use a Canon 10D, and the Canon software is so awful that I always use other tools to convert and manipulate the images.

I fully agree with your point that it would be better if the camera manufacturers fully opened up their file formats, and I fail to see how keeping them closed provides them an actual competetive advantage. However, so long as there is no constraint against converting RAW images to another lossless format I'm not sure that this is a battle in which the camera companies can be accused of trying to pull a fast one on consumers; I think it's merely a case where they need to be educated about the further benefits of opening up their formats (ie open source developers can build free tools, etc).

Re:Digital == Loss of freedom

[Phanatic1a]

There is always some risk in machine readable data.

There is always some risk, period. If I keep stacks of negatives in boxes in my house, then in 20 or 30 years time my house might catch fire and burn to the ground.

Okay, *I* might be clued up enough to always keep my negatives in a fireproof safe, but Joe Public is one day going to use a penny as a fuse replacement and find that he can't look at the photos on all that celluloid ash.

RAW format

[James_Duncan8181]

The RAW format wars seem an odd competiton between camera manufacturers, who are actively hurting their presence in the professional space by making their imafes less useful for archive purposes and less interoperable for press agencies to sell. The thing that is particually noticible is that manufacturers are now being actively co-opted into sharing this information under NDA with MS to allow the hardware to work seamlessly with Longhorn. This mass move from open to propriatory standards (something MS will, of course, encourage) is meaning that the camera manufacturers are seeing their poduct become commoditised, and apparently feeling unable to compete on hardware quality alone.

Thanks Canon, you just made me finally feel confident about buying Taiwanese.

Need for a broader approach?

[archeopterix]

Hm... Everytime I read something similar to the article (that is about twice a week), I think that there should be a non-profit organisation to oppose taking away customer rights under the guise of "intellectual property".

Something powerful enough to organise boycott that would cause *pain* to the offending company. Something that a congresscritter would be afraid to piss off. EFF comes close, except that it a) has a broader scope and b) sadly is not powerful enough.

Too bad that the existing consumer organisations are focused on making money from their "consumer reports" and the general population doesn't care (the frog is half-boiled and still comfortable).