It looks like Adobe just announced digital negative format (dng).

The Digital Negative (DNG), a new, publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. By addressing the lack of an open standard for the raw files created by individual camera models, DNG helps ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

Here’s a site that seems to be pretty new to go along with it: rawformat.com.