--On Friday, 06 October, 2006 14:26 -0400 "Gray, Eric" <Eric.Gray@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > It makes sense now, but will it make sense in 10 years? > > With today's DVD technology, is it completely unlikely > that ISO CD formats may not be supported by then? Is it > not possible that CDs will go the way of 8-track tapes, > beta-max, and 3.25 " floppy and 100 Mega-byte Zip drives? > > I can store more data on a memory stick than I can on a > CD. In 10 years, I expect I'll be able to store as much > as 20 times the data of a CD on a stick - and I don't > think the stick uses the ISO format. > > It would be a shame to have to support an "ISO format > converter" in 10 years so that people could access the > older IETF documents and proceedings... Eric, I made a suggestion similar to Andy's and Mike's in a offlist note to Ray. I also suggested doing it as well as the ZIP file, not instead of it -- the marginal costs in terms of storage or production would not be large and it seems to me that they meet the needs of different audiences. Ultimately, an ISO CD image is good for only one thing, which is producing CDs, and a compact format where individual files are more accessible is clearly a good idea. To my knowledge, no one has suggested discontinuing the current online HTML accessibility either. Beyond that, while I understand the concerns you list, one could make the same observations about HTML (and make the same "size of installed base" argument for CDs that most of us would make about HTML). One needs to be conservative, but not to get ridiculous. Remember that there was no particular reason to assume that zip-format files would last when they were first introduced, or that the format would survive its author (several other archive formats of the time basically didn't). Speaking as someone who can still read and write 9-track tapes (but not 8 track), 100 Mb ZIP disks, and 3 1/2 (and 5 1/4) inch diskettes. :-) ... john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf