Re: XHTML2 MIME type

Mikko Rantalainen <mira@cc.jyu.fi> wrote:

> If we get XHTML2 out relatively fast I don't see any problem with using 
> application/xhtml+xml for it too. Though I'd rather use text/xhtml+xml.

The HTML WG first tried to register both 'text/xhtml+xml' and
'application/xhtml+xml', and that was met by very strong resistance
at the IETF, so we gave up to register 'text/xhtml+xml'.  For
background discussion, see "text/xhtml+xml vs. application/xhtml+xml"
thread on ietf-xml-mime [1].

> Another way to think this: how about MIME type application/xhtml2 
> (without the +xml part).

The '+xml' convention was established by RFC 3023, and the TAG finding
"Internet Media Type registration, consistency of use" states that
"[t]he conventions and framework established by RFC 3023 SHOULD be
followed when registering an Internet Media Type for a language
that uses XML syntax" [2].  Unless we have very good reason to not
follow this TAG finding, that's unlikely to happen.

> Yet another idea: is it possible to add another base type to MIME types? 
> It seems that XML is getting big enough that we could really use 
> something like xml/xhtml2, xml/smil, xml/svg, xml/x-my-own-format.

It was already discussed at ietf-xml-mime and was turned down.
See Appendix A.3 "Why not create a new top-level MIME type for
XML-based media types?" of RFC 3023 [3].

[1] http://www.imc.org/ietf-xml-mime/mail-archive/threads.html#00612
[2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2002/0129-mime#registration
[3] http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3023.txt

Regards,
-- 
Masayasu Ishikawa / mimasa@w3.org
W3C - World Wide Web Consortium

Received on Wednesday, 9 April 2003 07:43:44 UTC