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application/fs vs. fs/* (was Re: Transfer Encoding for MIME)

1998-09-11 14:04:20
Excerpts from bulk.interesting.lists: 11-Sep-98 Re: Transfer Encoding
for MIME Pete Resnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)co (3121*)

Fine. All that put together argues that FS is actually a container format 
itself with multiple objects inside of it, similar to tar or StuffIt. If 
that's the case, then there is no question it should be a subtype of 
application: It should be application/fs. There is still no explanation 
here of why it should be a top-level type. Would there be any reason for it 
*not* to be a subtype of application?

Am I missing something, or are we spending more time arguing over the
name of this thing than its design?  A general container for
OS-independent files is a GREAT and CHALLENGING idea.  Putting "fs" in
the top level allows us to punt all the hard decisions to the second
level.  If that's the goal of the exercise -- i.e. to permit the gradual
*evolution* of file system wrappers -- then a top-level name might make
sense.  Otherwise, if we're really trying to standardize on a  single
one for all time, I'd argue for application/fs.

One could have had a very similar argument about "image" a few years
ago.  The fundamental guess, when the original 7 MIME types were chosen,
was that image formats would continue to evolve over the long term, so
multiple subtypes would be useful, in particular to further that
evolution.  Is this analogous to what we believe to be true about file
container formats?  -- Nathaniel
--------
Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(_at_)nsb(_dot_)si(_dot_)umich(_dot_)edu> 
http://guppylake.com/~nsb/nsb-faq.html

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