Off-the-cuff, and personal thought here...
You raise a valid and important question: What software was used to
create this dataset, and can we find a way to use it...
I suspect we should, for long-term archives, have a metadata field for
the code used to create the file, and if it's not "netcdf" but rather,
e.g., a model that may have reinterpretted a release of netcdf
codes/libs rather than calling the libs, metadata identifying the
revision/release of the codes it derives from.
This also implies that we keep a copy of different releases around, and
migrate them to new architectures periodically. This is a less-daunting
task than doing a format migration on a largish archive.
gerry
Dan Wilkinson wrote:
I am participating in the planning for large future archive that will
rely heavily on NetCDF, and this question came to mind. Should some
sort of NetCDF software time capsule be included in the meta data to
insure that the NetCDF data could be interpreted many decades hence?
The prudent thing to do would be to perform a format migration every few
years, however, I can see how very large volume archives might be
neglected in that regard.
Thanks,
Dan
_______________________________________________
netcdf-java mailing list
netcdf-java@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For list information or to unsubscribe, visit: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
--
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager@xxxxxxxx
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.862.3982 FAX: 979.862.3983
Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843
