Re: [Bug 6684] Disregard of RFC 4329 and IANA MIME Media Types

Sierk Bornemann wrote:
> Because I am unsatisfied and displeased, how bug #6684 is handled and 
> put down, I put this bug #6684 out of the edge of Bugzilla and onto the 
> table of the WG to be noticed (and eventually discussed) by a broader 
> audience:
> 
> [Bug 6684] Disregard of RFC 4329 and IANA MIME Media Types
> http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6684
> 
> Thanks in advance for your interest, your opinions and helpful 
> suggestions are welcome.
> Sierk

In the meantime, the spec has changed, and doesn't say

"The MIME type used to refer to ECMAScript in this specification is 
text/javascript. This is a willful violation of RFC 4329. [RFC4329]"

anymore. It now reads:

"Similarly, the MIME type used to refer to JavaScript in this 
specification is text/javascript, since that is the most commonly used 
type, despite it being an officially obsoleted type according to RFC 
4329. [RFC4329]" -- see 
<http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6684#c26>

Beyond that, the spec doesn't seem to make any statements on which type 
to use.

So, can (or should) we do better? We discussed this issue briefly two 
weeks ago in the WG teleconference on April 2 
(<http://www.w3.org/2009/04/02-html-wg-minutes.html>).

In addition to not doing anything at all, two proposals were made:

(1) Work on revising RFC 4329, un-obsoleting "text/javascript" 
(realizing that this is what people use in practice anyway), and

(2) Take the position that the media type referenced in script/@type has 
different requirements from content type in HTTP response headers; in 
particular, the character set issue goes away as soon as the script is 
inlined into HTML. As UAs seem to ignore the type for external script, 
it would be possible to recommend application/*script for this case 
without breaking anything. The disadvantage for this approach would be 
that the spec would need to promote different types depending on how the 
script is sent over the wire.

Feedback appreciated,

Julian

Received on Monday, 20 April 2009 14:49:09 UTC