Re: Re-registration of text/html

On 20.02.2010 09:25, Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
> Julian Reschke, Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:50:45 +0100:
>
>> ISSUE-82 in turn is related to ISSUE-53. If the re-registration of
>> text/html excludes HTML4 validity, then yes, HTML5 will not only need
>> to make @profile conforming but also define it.
>
> Could someone shed some light on exactly what is meant here? What kind
> of reregistration of text/html? What kind of consequences? How/In what
> sense does reregistration exclude HTML4 validity? Is there other kinds
> of validity, like XHTML served as text/html that is excluded too? How
> will I get to feel that it is "excluded"?

HTML5 contains IANA instructions to change the specification for 
text/html from RFC 2854 to HTML5 
(<http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#text-html>)

Thus, if HTML5 forbids something (such as @profile), you can't serve it 
as text/html anymore, even though you might be using an HTML 4.01 
doctype. (Well, you *can* serve it as text/html, it "just" wouldn't be 
correct anymore).

There are two ways to fix this

1) let the MIME registration continue to allow serving HTML 4.01.

2) make more of HTML 4.01 valid HTML5.

Note that the IETF mime type re-registration rules says:

    Changes should be requested only when there are serious omissions or
    errors in the published specification.  When review is required, a
    change request may be denied if it renders entities that were valid
    under the previous definition invalid under the new definition.

(<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4288#section-9>), so my recommendation 
is that we try to fix this problem before the re-registration is 
attempted (or at least ask the IESG for advice before we get there).

Best regards, Julian

Received on Saturday, 20 February 2010 08:37:45 UTC