Re: review of content type rules by IETF/HTTP community

Magnus Kristiansen wrote:
> It doesn't just apply to new format and old servers either. Apache does 
> not include several common extensions in its mime mappings, as I 
> understand it because there is a policy of only supporting 
> IANA-registered types. Many of these are old and well-established, so 
> there is little chance of them deciding to change their mind and 
> register any time soon. I doubt Apache is alone, surely other web 

Who are "they"? Anybody can try to register a type. The registration 
procedure is here: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4288>.

> servers have their own ways to ensure not all content works as it should 
> out of the box.
> 
> The consequences are externalized to server admins to fix things on 
> their own (e.g. with [1]) and UA implementors to make it work even when 
> it's not fixed. I have low hopes for this problem being solved by the 
> servers.
> 
> [1] 
> http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Properly_Configuring_Server_MIME_Types

Well, at least for Apache httpd the default is *not* to send a 
content-type response header when the type is unknown. As far as I can 
tell, we're discussing something completely different here: servers that 
send an incorrect type.

Best regards, Julian

Received on Saturday, 25 August 2007 08:17:33 UTC