Re: Backward-compatibility of text/html media type (ACTION-334, ACTION-364)

On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:06:41 +0100, Henry S. Thompson <ht@inf.ed.ac.uk>  
wrote:
> Sure, if the spec. is changed so that all past HTML docs conform to
> the it, but as I said, I don't think that's a reasonable requirement
> on this or any other spec.
>
> My understanding of the discontinuity wrt the text/html media type
> registration prose is this:
>
>  1) Previous media type registrations for text/html have explicitly
>     grandfathered in documents allowed by all earlier registrations of
>     text/html;

That does not seem to be true.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2854 obsoletes various text/html media type  
features of HTML2 (level parameter) and HTML32 (version parameter) and  
only references HTML4 and XHTML1 as published specifications related to  
the media type.


>  2) IETF rules for media type re-registrations requires that sort of
>     grandfathering;

It seems there is a precedent.


>  3) The current draft media type registration section of the HTML 5
>     spec. does _not_ contain any such grandfathering.

It seems a case can be made for that not to be needed based on RFC 2854.


-- 
Anne van Kesteren
http://annevankesteren.nl/