FLIF image chunk position

[preuss]

I have read the description about fileformat, and the the long argument about the position of the FLIF image data. It is now "Has to be the last chunk in the stream".

My question is why does it have to be the last ? If the use case is to be internet friendly, it should be the first, above metadata. Because you do normally not need the metadata when reading the image. If the case is for photo and archival, where the photograph is using the metadata and editing this a lot. Then you have to rewrite the whole file again, when writing from the beginning of the file. So I don't see a case where image data should be the last.

[jonsneyers]

The main piece of metadata you can store in a FLIF, is an ICC color profile. You do need this to correctly render the image.

I agree that putting Exif metadata at the end might make sense in some use cases.

[preuss]

So the most important is the ICC color profile,and the image data?

I would say putting Exif Metadata in the end, would make sense in most cases. There was an old discussion about container format. Here it sounded that all thought Exif Metadata should be first, but I did not find a reason. Do you know what your thoughts about putting Exif metadata first?