text/xml for SOAP is incorrect

Dear the XML Protocol WG,

As a co-author of RFC 3023 (XML Media Types), I repeat my claim.  Use
of text/xml for SOAP is incorrect.  Please use application/xml,
instead.

>3. XML Media Types
... 
>    If an XML document -- that is, the unprocessed, source XML document
>    -- is readable by casual users, text/xml is preferable to
>    application/xml.  MIME user agents (and web user agents) that do not
>    have explicit support for text/xml will treat it as text/plain, for
>    example, by displaying the XML MIME entity as plain text.
>    Application/xml is preferable when the XML MIME entity is unreadable
>    by casual users.  Similarly, text/xml-external-parsed-entity is
>    preferable when an external parsed entity is readable by casual
>    users, but application/xml-external-parsed-entity is preferable when
>    a plain text display is inappropriate.
> 
>       NOTE: Users are in general not used to text containing tags such
>       as <price>, and often find such tags quite disorienting or
>       annoying.  If one is not sure, the conservative principle would
>       suggest using application/* instead of text/* so as not to put
>       information in front of users that they will quite likely not
>       understand.

Regards,

MURATA Makoto

Received on Monday, 17 September 2001 09:20:01 UTC