My concern about richtext is not its usefulness.. I see and completely
agree with that. My concern is that it is ignoring an existing standard (SGML)
and our resident expert on that standard (Erik Naggum) is claiming that it
is not SGML, and not compatible with it.
While I do not know SGML from a hole in the ground, it sounds like a
Good and Useful standard.
There is nothing to stop an SGML content-type from being defined as an
addendum RFC. Just as there is nothing to stop anyone from using
Richtext in one body part while using SGML in another. So long as it
is clearly labeled there's no problem, eh? So long as everybody understands
they should not treat Richtext as SGML (assuming it remains a non-SGML thing)
then there's `no interoperability problem'.
Getting MIME approved is very important. Since SGML is likely Good and
Useful, someone should put in effort to standardise it for use in
the MIME framework. Unless we can quickly and easily redesign Richtext
to be SGML compatible we shouldn't hold up the MIME process with this matter.
David