I'd like to know if a revision of RFC 1524 is planned, in conjunction
with the current revision of MIME ?
I certainly hope not. mailcap files today are like HOSTS.TXT 15 years
ago. They don't scale. The number of media type definitions floating
around is growing exponentially, and we're going to have to do
something better than a flat text file to keep track of them.
I certainly hope *this* doesn't last. We don't need nearly so many
media types, at least not in common use. The number of entries in
the mailcap file is the least of the problems. We still have to
have a plugin for every media type (and given the proliferation of
proprietary nondocumented media types, it's damn near impossible to
do the security analysis of the ones we have already).
Which is not to say that I don't like the idea of being able to
put each media type definition in a separate file or directory,
and making them accessible by a URL.
But once we do that people are going to want to put the plugins
themselves in that directory, and download them as needed. We'd
better be ready with a really safe language with which to interpret
the plugin (no, it doesn't exist yet), AND a standard way to digitally
sign the plugin along with an indication of "how much rope" it should
have and have that signature verified by the client, before it gets
executed (and no, that facility doesn't exist yet either).
Flat mailcap files could be a blessing after all.
Keith