XHTML 1.1 media types

 From the new working draft of XHTML 1.1:

> XHTML 1.1 documents SHOULD be labeled withthe Internet Media Type  
> text/html as defined
> in [RFC2854]

Which says:

       In addition, [XHTML1] defines a profile of use
       of XHTML which is compatible with HTML 4.01 and
       which may also be labeled as text/html.

... making no mention of XHTML 1.1.

> or application/xhtml+xml as definedin [RFC3236]. For further information  
> on using
> media types with XHTML, see the informative
> note [XHTMLMIME].

Which says:

       In general, this media type is NOT suitable for
       XHTML.

and

       The use of 'text/html' for XHTML SHOULD be limited
       for the purpose of rendering on existing HTML user
       agents, and SHOULD be limited to [XHTML1] documents
       which follow the HTML Compatibility Guidelines.

and to paraphrase the summary tables:

       XHTML 1.1 SHOULD NOT be served as text/html

Additionally, as far as I know, nothing added in XHTML 1.1 (i.e. Ruby  
annotation) is supported by legacy user agents. So there seems little  
point in allowing it to be served as text/html.

I propose the following change:

XHTML 1.1 documents SHOULD be labeled with the Internet Media Type  
application/xhtml+xml as defined in [RFC3236]. They SHOULD NOT be labeled  
with the Internet Media Type text/html as defined in [RFC2854]. For  
further information on using media types with XHTML, see the informative  
note [XHTMLMIME].

-- 
David Dorward <http://dorward.me.uk/>

Received on Monday, 19 February 2007 17:05:54 UTC