A commentary states that the Metadata Coalition is close to introducing the Metadata Interchange Format (MIF), a spec that will let diverse data tools easily exchange metadata. MIF should be a big success for the following reasons: 1. The Coalition is comprised of interested parties with a common focus and shared goals, not a traditional standards body or regulatory group. 2. The Coalition's approach is tactical, not theoretical. 3. Anything that a vendor stores in the Application Data area of the MIF must be imported and exported unchanged by other vendors. There could be serious competition going on right under the nose of the vendor, who has no choice but to tolerate it. 4. The MIF's private data capsules further empower vendors that team up to integrate their products' metadata more seamlessly.
展开▼
