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

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".
> 
> 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. 

This is possibly a stupid question, but why even have a registry, 
surely we could just use the URI of the spec (dated/versioned)?

Best,

Nathan

Received on Friday, 28 January 2011 23:18:57 UTC