Please revert application/rdf+xml on the W3C site

Yesterday Dom made the change requested in

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Team/webreq/2002May/0078.html

    To: webreq@w3.org
    Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 14:22:35 +0100
    Message-ID: <29215.1021641755@tatooine.ilrt.bris.ac.uk>
    From: Dave Beckett <dave.beckett@bristol.ac.uk>
    Subject: Media Type for RDF/XML

    ... As the editor of the RDF/XML syntax
    document for the WG I'd like to get the w3.org web servers changed
    over to use this for '.rdf' and maybe '.rdfs' files.

Thanks, Dom.

Now we see the bad effects of [lack of] backward compatibility
with deployed browsers.

Before this change yesterday, resources such as
http://www.w3.org/2002/06/conf would be retrieved and
rendered in a useable fashion (thanks to the CSS) by
IE5 and Mozilla 1.0.

After this change, IE5 refuses to download the resource
at all.  It starts a "file download" operation but then
reports the bizarre error "Internet Explorer was not able
to open this Internet site.  The requested site is either
unavailable or cannot be found.  Please try again later."

If I try to open http://www.w3.org/2002/06/conf.rdf (that
is, with the explicit file extension) in IE5 it offers
the file download dialog successfully.

Mozilla offers to download http://www.w3.org/2002/06/conf.

Note that http://www.w3.org/1998/12/bridge/Zakim.rdf still
(as of the time I am writing this message) works in a
useful fashion because the configuration of the server to
which that resource is proxied has not yet been changed.

So, while I supported the RDFCore WG's decision in theory
I am forced to disagree in practice.

Dom, please revert this media type change to our servers.

Received on Wednesday, 3 July 2002 08:49:04 UTC