Broadcast Media File (BWF) is a file format very similar to WAV format with the addition of metadata support for track/artist information.

BWF files do not suffer quality loss through compression like MP3 and many others suffer.

Does anybody have thoughts about comparison of BWF versus FLAC or other lossless compression for audio? I mean obviously FLAC is better because it is a compressed format, but what about long term compatibility into the future?

Does anybody know where to get BWF codec for Linux?

And does anybody know what are the best "Rhythmbox / BMP" type audio player/music library management programs for Linux that will actually read the metadata from a BWF file?

Broadcast Wave Format is probably what you are thinking of - this is uncompressed and includes metadata to facilitate syncronisation et al - as well as the track/artist stuff mentioned. The important part is the SMPTE Time Code reference.

There is otherwise no difference from MS WAV format - including filesize limitations. Free software capable of playing WAV format can also play BWF format.

You will still get a smaller file at the same quality from FLAC files. BWF is mostly useful for broadcast media where the company is not worried about bandwidth costs. BWF files can be encoded to flac happily with the --keep-foreign-metadata flag.