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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I realized that publishing a spec for a file format like
MRSID isn’t as clear cut as I had at first thought. If the MRSID software
uses a fancy top-secret compression/decompression algorithm to move data to and
from the file format knowing only the structure of the format would do no good.
You’d have to release the details of the algorithm as well.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I still don’t think proprietary file formats are a
good idea for government data released to the public, but I admit that having a
company like LizardTech publish a spec for something like MRSID is not
necessarily a simple task. No doubt a lot of time and money goes into
developing those algorithms.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This makes me wonder about algorithms used to purposefully
encrypt binary file formats. That is another can of worms. It looks like the
easiest thing to do is to start with a file format that was designed to be open
from the very beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Landon<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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