- From: Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 15:33:12 +0200
- To: www-tag@w3.org, "Ian B. Jacobs" <ij@w3.org>
- CC: reagle@w3.org
On Wednesday, September 4, 2002, 5:35:23 PM, Ian wrote: IBJ> Hello, IBJ> I have edited the TAG finding "Internet Media Type IBJ> registration, consistency of use" [1] to include IBJ> proposals resulting from two action items: IBJ> 1) Changes to registration requirements in light of IBJ> a better understanding of interactions between IBJ> W3C, IETF, and IANA processes. Joseph Reagle IBJ> has written a document entitled ""How to Register a IBJ> Media Type with IANA" [4]. This document recommends IBJ> a process whereby the registration information is part IBJ> of an Internet Draft (not part of a W3C specification) IBJ> and must be available for review along with the IBJ> specification. The finding text has been updated to IBJ> refer to that "best practice" document. The revised IBJ> language is: IBJ> "The IETF registration forms MUST be available for IBJ> review along with the specification no later than IBJ> Candidate Recommendation (or at last call if the IBJ> Working Group expects to advance directly to Proposed IBJ> Recommendation). The IETF registration forms SHOULD be IBJ> available for review no later than last call." IBJ> This may obviate Joseph's objection [3] to the previous IBJ> language. Okay, and this accomplishes some of the same goals, but does mean that the registration text (for example, the security section) is non-normative and not paert of a Rec; this is undesirable. It also means that last calls and CR and soon need to explicitely invite review of this extra document. IBJ> Since the process described in [4] has not been heavily IBJ> tested, there is a cautionary note in the references IBJ> section, designed to address a concern raised by Paul IBJ> Cotton. The language is: IBJ> [IANAREG] IBJ> "How to Register a Media Type with IANA". This is an informal IBJ> document intended to capture best practice for requests that a IBJ> Mime Type defined by a W3C Recommendation be registered in the IBJ> IANA registry. This document may change as W3C learns from IBJ> experience or as processes in the various organizations evolve. IBJ> 2) Incorporate comments from Chris Lilley about charset IBJ> headers [2]. I have modified section 3, and made some IBJ> editorial changes to Chris' text. The modification is generally good; however the final paragraph of section 3 alludes to a question while leaving it unanswered: The use of the charset parameter, when the charset is reliably known and agrees with the encoding declaration, is RECOMMENDED, since this information can be used by non-XML processors to determine authoritatively the charset of the XML MIME entity. When the charset is reliably known and disagrees with the encoding declaration do what? (Or "don't do that"/"it is an error", which would work for me). When the charset is not known, do what (Omit the charset parameter) When the charset parameter is omitted and the media type is a non-text +xml type, the client shoud do what? Read the XML encoding declaration (works for me). Do something counter-intuitive and stupid like assume its US-ASCII thus breaking all UTF-16 and any non-English UTF-8 XML content, in a mistaken attempt to propagate the mistakes of text/* on the rest of the world (sorry, my preference may be detectable there). IBJ> Your comments on both proposals welcome, IBJ> - Ian IBJ> [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2002/0129-mime IBJ> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jul/0323 IBJ> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jun/0073 IBJ> [4] http://www.w3.org/2002/06/registering-mediatype -- Chris mailto:chris@w3.org
Received on Thursday, 5 September 2002 09:33:22 UTC