Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Final Review Request of seven (7) W3C VCWG Specifications (Issue #1029)

msporny left a comment (w3ctag/design-reviews#1029)

@marcoscaceres wrote:
> @msporny, any reason why the mime type is lacking +json?

Grab your tissues, my friend, because this is going to be a really sad story with an unsatisfying end. :P

Yes, the topic of using a structured suffix came up 5+ years ago when some of us tried to register `application/did+ld+json`, which resulted in a: "That's legal, but we don't know what it means to have multiple plus signs." from the Designated Experts at IETF. That sent both the W3C DIDWG and VCWG on a side quest at IETF to determine if "+ld+json" was allowable as a suffix since the data model was JSON-LD and the media type for JSON-LD is `application/ld+json`... so, obviously, if a media type used JSON-LD as a format, the base media type would just add "+ld+json", right?

At the time, we thought we could just keep adding plus signs because RFC6838 allowed it syntactically... and we thought it was ok since, for JSON-LD, we were just asked to add `+json` to the base media type (`application/ld`) to state that the format was JSON... but then when we tried to repeat that pattern for `application/did` by doing `application/did+ld+json` the DEs were like: Hmm, no idea what that means. 

So, the IETF MEDIAMAN WG was chartered to answer that question and after years of discussion at W3C and IETF, we landed on this spec (which tried to explain the rules behind using multiple plus signs):

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-mediaman-suffixes-05.html

...and after more years of grueling debate at the IETF, the result was (consensus through exhaustion) to NOT allow the use of multiple structured suffixes, which resulted in this spec:

https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-mediaman-suffixes-08.html

... which is being rolled into RFC6838bis as we speak. 

The side-effect of that decision meant that if we added "+json", we couldn't add any other sort of suffix in the future, and we already knew that people wanted to add other suffixes (like "+sd-jwt", or "+cborld"). So, the WG was like "We now hate suffixes because they've caused us nothing but pain over 5+ years AND because we know that we want to do +sd-jwt at some point and we're only allowed one plus sign now."... so we picked a media type that had no plus signs so this issue wouldn't bite future VCWGs or DIDWGs when they (inevitably) extended the media type.

Like I said, sad story with an unsatisfying ending. 

In order to salvage something positive from all of that, we are thinking of creating an off-broadway musical inspired by these events... working titles are currently "MIME and Punishment", "The Forbidden Plus", or "Cat+as+trophe". We'd bring the cast of Cats back for that last one, obviously.



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