Product: MIME architecture for the Web

Background

There are a number of issues that need to be addressed to insure careful evolution of the Web while retaining global interoperability. Many issues revolve around providing for extensibility of stable specifications for languages and protocols by using an extensible set of identifiers; one common way of managing identifiers and their meaning is by use of a registry. The Internet mail framework MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Exchange) was designed to facilitate extensibility in the Internet mail infrastructure, and the Web adopted several of the MIME mechanisms for use in HTTP in other protocols. In particular, MIME's registry of names of languages and file formats (Internet Media Types), and its registry of character sets (charsets) are used in many of the Web's protocols and formats.

Goals

The goal of this activity is to help guide the use of MIME protocol elements in Web specifications and implementations, and to analyze, document, and propose solutions to difficulties with current effective use of MIME in the Web. This activity is one of several key developments in helping the community manage extensibility securely and reliably.

Success criteria

• The TAG will publish analyses explaining the areas in which use of Mime on the Web is proving problematic, and will suggest concrete steps for resolving problems where they are found.
• The TAG will liase with the IETF and other concerned parties to resolve these issues.
• The TAG, working with others as appropriate, will document the solutions that are agreed by the community, and will highlight areas in which unresolved problems remain.

Key deliverables with dates:

• 31 March 2012: Publication of document satisfying above success criteria, most likely in the form of a TAG Finding.

Schedules:

• 31 Dec 2011: Initial draft of finding
• 28 February 2012: TAG achieves success criteria set out above, and identifies further goals and next steps, if any.

TAG Members assigned:

• Larry Masinter is developing a broader analysis of evolution of languages, specifications, and implementations, an analysis of registries and
• Jeni Tennison is leading the analysis of concerns relating to frament ID semantics

TAG Issues, Actions and Tracker Product Page

Issues

• ISSUE-1: Should W3C WGs define their own media types?
• ISSUE-9: Why does the Web use mime types and not URIs?
• ISSUE-66: The role of MIME in the Web Architecture

Actions

• ACTION-233: Report back from IETF/HTML liason meeting in March regarding MIME type override
• ACTION-424: Start discussion on www-tag about additional finding/web architecture around MIME types in web architecture, updating existing findings (Larry Masinter)
• ACTION-425: Draft updated MIME finding(s), with help from DanA, based on www-tag discussion (Larry Masinter)
• ACTION-458: Schedule discussion of followup actions for TAG to coordinate with IETF on MIME-type related activities (Noah Mendelsohn)
• ACTION-472: Update the mime-draft based on comments & review (Larry Masinter)
• ACTION-543: Propose addition to MIME/Web draft to discuss sem-web use of fragids not grounded in media type (Jeni Tennison)
• ACTION-526: Do first draft product stuff for MIME and related core web mechanisms (Noah Mendelsohn)