Really there are two: You have metadata in the file (magic numbers, etc) You have metadata outside the file that is attached Meta in the file will move betwe

Really there are two: You have metadata in the file (magic numbers, etc) You have metadata outside the file that is attached Meta in the file will move between OSs. Meta outside the file might not. What we probably need is every file in all OSs to have an agreed upon metadata file header. I mean, it's 2020... but that is some serious cat herding. Back when I was saddled with Documentum and the great problem of extracting metadata from office docs, this also reared its head. A common metadata block would have been nice so you didn't have to code against hostile file formats (not that Office would play nice with a common metadata block, but maybe customers could force them. Maybe. Well, I can dream)