Re: XBL media type?

On Aug 23, 2006, at 21:32, Mark Nottingham wrote:

> Media types tend to be used for purposes that you aren't planning  
> for right now...

Surely in order to reap any useful network effects from an installed  
base the MIME type needs to be widely deployed. New MIME types are  
hard for average authors to deploy (because usually the author is not  
in charge of the server config). Moreover, if there are no immediate  
must-have benefits today, there's no incentive for people out there  
to deploy a new MIME type.

I think sniffing for a BOM or an XML decl works better than character  
encoding information on the HTTP level. Likewise, I believe that  
sniffing for a magic number or the root namespace works better than  
type information on the HTTP level.

And the IANA process for registering MIME types is dysfunctional as  
demonstrated by the amazing slowness with the registrations of image/ 
jp2 and movie/mp4.

So I think trying to deploy a new MIME type is not worth it-- 
especially if it is only for purposes that aren't planned.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Received on Wednesday, 23 August 2006 21:34:30 UTC