Re: registering formats in the web [uriMediaType-9] [Fwd: Request for MIME media type Application/Personal Tree - prs.]

Mark Nottingham wrote:
> Personally, I'm not quite as eager to allow arbitrary formats be 
> registered as I used to be. The registry acts as a brake on 
> proliferation (as intended), and the issues around "what deserves its 
> own media type" are tricky enough that some sort of review process is 
> necessary.
>
> I should attribute at least some of the cause of this hesitation to 
> the Microformats folks, who encourage reuse of existing formats and 
> data models, rather than reinvention. I'm not completely convinced 
> that this is the right approach for everything (in particular, at the 
> element/statement level, depending on your data model of choice), but 
> at the granularity of identifying/dispatching formats, it might be.

I'd like to add my 2p on this issue.
I am currently working on copy and paste of mathematical formulae for 
the ActiveMath learning environment whose source formulae are encoded in 
OpenMath.

As you probably know, the only way to negotiate inter-application 
copy-and-paste or drag-and-drop are mime-types... so I have to be sure 
that these are working for our purpose.

One requirement I have on these mime-types is the necessity to describe 
the set of mathematical symbols supported by the clients. One such set 
is the MathML-content specification set of symbols. But, typically, 
there are others:
- for example if you go to some mathematical systems which have 
traditionally different set of symbols (I think Maple needs some 
classical symbols to be non-MathML-symbols).
- for example if you go  to some places where  the input is highly 
limited hence even supporting the whole MathML-content is too much.

I even think these set of symbols should even be authorable.
 
Enabling this to be declared at the negotiation allows 
source-applications (or their authors) to respond to such limitations by 
providing the necessary translators, if possible. Right now, I also 
serve these clips by HTTP GETs and I dare say that a request for 
text/xml can only be honoured in a completely arbitrary fashion...

Are you saying that such set of symbols should not be declarable as easy 
as a web-publication ? I tend to believe that my requirements say the 
contrary...

paul

Received on Sunday, 5 February 2006 21:51:37 UTC