RE: ACTION-472: New Mime-web-info draft

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, Larry Masinter wrote:

>> There is a need to document the reality of media type deployment. If a
>> media type is registered at the end of design time, so after basic interop
>> testing, but way before wide deployment, you can expect that there will be
>> unseen issues, so a repository of issues or even errata that might be
>> folded later in the main repository. (In sync with the first line of
>> paragraph 5, bringing the MIME registry and real life closer).
>
> What's hard is when there are multiple perceptions of "reality".

Well, if the reality is that there are many realities, it ought to be 
documented.

> And some of the issues for MIME types are general issues
> for 'registries', and even for standards which the registered
> values point to.
>
> In general, there is the question of evolution and versioning;
> if a registration is going to be useful, it must point to a
> document which describes what is being registered. But of course,
> registrations are valuable only if the document that everyone
> reads is the same document. And yet, documents and the technologies
> they describe evolve over time.
>
> I think this is an issue for any registry, and any MIME type,
> whether image/jpeg, application/xml, application/pdf or text/html.
> Technologies evolve, some more rapidly than others; yet there are
> versions of technologies that people agree to call out as stable.
>
> A MIME type does not itself imply a particular version, but indicates
> any one of a stream of versions.

So the registry, should provide a way to point to the different format 
versions attached to a media type, the stable one(s), and even the 
not-so-stable-but-deployed one, clearly stated as 'informative references'

-- 
Baroula que barouleras, au tiéu toujou t'entourneras.

         ~~Yves

Received on Monday, 31 January 2011 15:00:30 UTC