Fido 1.8 in development

[Adam Farquhar]

All,

I'm currently doing an update to Fido, which is a file format identification tool written in Python that uses the Pronom signatures. I wrote the first version in 2010 and it has been further developed and maintained since them. Currently, it is supported by the Open Preservation Foundation.

Fido 1.8 will be a significant release. While we will maintain the existing command line interface, Fido 1.8 should make it much easier to use Fido as a library from within a Python application. We will migrate it fully to Python 3.8+, do substantial refactoring to make it easier to test and maintain, and enhance performance. I think that it is important for this community to have multiple independent implementations and approaches for file format identification to spur innovation and support different development and application ecosystems.

I look forward discussing topics with you over the coming months. My thanks to Ross Spencer for the help he was already provided!