[rfc-i] New proposal for "canonical and others"

[Leonard Rosenthol]

>The evidence is that acid-free paper and the right kind of ink are very durable (centuries); whereas all digital storage media that I'm aware of have a lifetime >measured in decades without regular re-copying.
>
Which is why all archival format discussions (such as PDF/A) all take place separately from the work being done on archival media (and various other "bits").

When designing an archival format, you should ASSUME that the media, migration, etc. issues are addressed elsewhere - or you'll never get anywhere.

If it helps, here are the criteria that were set forth (by archivists!) at the beginning of the PDF/A standardization process:

A document format that
	Can convey critical information
	Can be rendered accurately - "consistent and predictable"
	Rich metadata support
		Standard schemas such as DublinCore
		Custom schemas
		Document providence, version history, audit trails
	Can incorporate associated "marginalia"
		Notes scrawled in the margins on documents
		Comments & markup
	Digital Signatures for "tamper-proofing"

Additionally, they felt that it was necessary to include:
	A definition of how retrieval devices (readers) will behave


Leonard