Re: TAG preparing to approve finding "Client handling of MIME headers"

Comments on the wording in Section 3.

Suggest change
"This model does not imply that a given set of bits can only be 
interpreted as the author intended. The model is designed to enable 
global understanding by having parties agree to follow a small set of 
rules for interpreting bits. Parties may reach local agreements 
independently, but they are not part of the Web architecture. "

to;

"This model does not imply that a given set of bits can only be 
interpreted as the author intended. The model is designed to enable 
global understanding by having parties agree to follow a small set of 
rules for interpreting bits.  The rule is that *the* defined 
interpretation of the message is the interpretation of the bits 
according to the MIME type. Parties may reach local agreements 
independently, but they do not change the defined meaning of the 
message.

(An example of one such use is XInclude [@@linkme] , which is in some 
cases specified to specifically refer to the source text of an XML 
document, and sometimes to the result of XML-parsing a plain text 
document. These can be viewed as transformations applied to the 
resource, rather than lies about the resource as in Norm's mislabeling 
above.)"


This spec does not apply to FTP.

Change:

"Generally the interpretation of bits is governed by a protocol 
specification (e.g., HTTP/1.1 and FTP) or a format specification (e.g., 
XHTML, CSS, PNG, XLink, RDF/XML, and SMIL animation). A "bag of bits" 
that is self-describing, i.e., that includes enough information to 
allow two parties to figure out how to interpret it, has the advantage 
of allowing the same interpretation by clients in different contexts, 
without requiring additional guidance."

To:

"Generally the interpretation of bits on the Internet is governed by a 
protocol specification (e.g., HTTP/1.1 and FTP). In the case of HTTP, 
that specification delegates the interpretation of the message entity 
to format specification (e.g., XHTML, CSS, PNG, XLink, RDF/XML, and 
SMIL animation) for the given MIME type.  A sequence of octets that is 
"self-describing", i.e., that includes enough information to allow two 
parties to figure out how to interpret it, has the advantage of 
allowing the same interpretation by clients in different contexts, 
without requiring additional guidance. However this can only 
distinguish between certain cases, and never allows one, for example, 
to distinguish between an XML document and a plain text document 
containing the source of that XML document."



On Tuesday, Jul 1, 2003, at 18:19 US/Eastern, Ian B. Jacobs wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> As discussed at the TAG's 30 June 2003 teleconference
> (minutes [0]), the TAG is preparing to approve the
> 25 June 2003 draft finding "Client handling of
> MIME headers" [1]. If you have any comments on this
> draft, please send them to www-tag before 7 July.
>
> Thank you,
>
>  _ Ian
>
> [0] http://www.w3.org/2003/06/30-tag-summary.html
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/mime-respect-20030625
> -- 
> Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
> Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:25:27 UTC