Will FotoML still be readable in 100 years time?

Hello Listers

Preserving and annotating all my genealogy-related digital photos is very
important to me and I would like to have some confidence that they will be
readable 100 years from now.

I believe that the JPEG format has become so widespread now, that future
readability is assured.

For the same reasons, I try to keep my annotations within the WinXP filename
itself and organise the files with a simple folder tree structure and the
odd folder shortcut. However there are limits to filename size (100
characters in DVD?) and often more extensive information is needed.

I have been looking at the Fototagger program which uses the FotoML
specification to store the annotations within the JPEG file itself :

Is the FotoML open source and / or widely supported, if not, what are the
alternatives?

Don't really want to spend man-months working on this extra detail unless
there is a reasonable prospect for readability a century from now.

TIA

Sam Dellit, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Allen...

Who knows? Perhaps in a hundred years JPEG will still be a viable
format. But what are thet stored on? Remember 8 inch floppies that were
around 20 years ago? Has the data survived on them? Can you find a
device that can read them? Will you still be able to find such a device
in another 80 years? It's more than data formats; it's also survival of
the medium holding the data and devices to read it.
Allen

singhals...

Which is why paper is still popular. (g) Not to mention stone tablets?

Seriously, Allen's right. Don't sweat the format because the
media-access is your bug-bear. Three years ago, I was trying to talk a
committee into publishing something on a CD because it was the newest
thing. A few months later DVD popped into the mass-market.

SOME photoware will allow you to insert a META-tag into the image. Using
that approach requires (a) the right photoware; (b) some surety that the
right photoware will operate on the next OS; (c) some way of passing on
the fact that the info exists; and (d) a commitment to data-migration.
Putting captions on the photos and then printing off numerous copies and
storing them in a archival environment is the least technology-dependent.

As has been suggested several times here and otherwhere, when you're
gone, and your children are gone, and your great-grandkids are cleaning
out the family home -- are they going to know what a CD or DVD is? Are
they even going to recognize it as something technology related that
MIGHT have something on it they want? That's their first step in
finding a way to access it.

Lesley Robertson...

If you want it to last 100 years and be readable, keep to the simplest
technology. At them moment, the only thing that's guaranteed to last that
long, and simple enough to be used no matter what the technology is
monochrome archival film which must then be stored in a cool, dry place.

T.M. Sommers...

Who's to say that that microfilm readers will still be available
100 years from now? Of course, you could always build your own.

Lesley Robertson...

Since I've just fed old microfilm through a film scanner and got decent
images, I expect that something that only requires light to be shone through
it and magnified will be readable in some form. This is the method being
used by the Dutch National Library and other major archives to preserve
fragile material. I have, in my fireproof safe in my archive, b/w film from
the 1920s that's still perfectly printable.

T.M. Sommers...

Sure, the film itself will probably survive, but reading it is
another matter. Light would probably not be a problem, but
getting an appropriate lens might be.

If you want something that's been tried and tested, I can recommend
old-style glass negatives. We've also been scanning them - going back to the

T.M. Sommers...

A bit fragile, I would think.

1880s - and they're giving perfect prints. IOf course, finding the materials
to do it won't be simple.
Lesley Robertson

Anything that requires an electronic reader is doomed to become obsolete.
Moreover, some of the storage media are instable - I have cds made only in
summer 2005 that were useless within 12 months.
Lesley Robertson