OpenRAW

The problem concerns long-term access and viewing of the raw images often used by professional and experienced amateur photographers.

[4] Early in 2005, Juergen Specht[5] and the members of his mailing list D1scussion began to identify concerns about the difficulties associated with the proprietary RAW files introduced by camera makers.

[30] What these supporters typically have in common was the conviction that people and organizations should reliably be able to access and view their photographs well into the future, and that this requires open documentation of the formats of the files used.

The OpenRAW website, especially the non-forum parts identified above, represent views of many companies and organizations other than camera makers.

Another resource, often cited on the web and still pertinent, is an article "The RAW Flaw",[31][32][33] jointly authored by Michael Reichmann (of The Luminous Landscape[22]) and Juergen Specht (leader of the founding group of OpenRAW), and published on each website.

Permission is given for the text to be copied and republished, with translation if desired, and there are examples in various countries and languages, especially of the "Act Now" call for action: in China (in English);[34] in French;[35] different versions in Spanish;[36][37] in Danish;[38] and in Italian.

This stance continued as DNG became better established while camera makers showed no signs of publishing documentation for their raw file formats.

[31] The larger camera makers, such as Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Sony, continue to use raw image formats that are not openly documented, and so still cause the problems identified by OpenRAW.

Increasingly, professional archivists and conservationists, working for respectable organizations, variously suggest or recommend DNG for archival purposes.