On 9/11/98 at 5:07 PM -0400, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote:
Am I missing something, or are we spending more time arguing over the
name of this thing than its design?
No, I don't think so.
A general container for OS-independent files is a GREAT and CHALLENGING idea.
Right.
Putting "fs" in the top level allows us to punt all the hard decisions to
the second level.
No. That's where the argument is. MIME already has a great general
container structure, i.e., the multipart top-level type. It also currently
has a great way of representing things in that container structure which
are files, i.e., the Content-Disposition with its assorted parameters.
What's missing is a profile of the top-level multipart type which is
specific to file system containers. That's where multipart/fs would be
reasonable; it's a profile of our already existing general container for
OS-independent *files*, just like multipart/digest is a container for
messages.
What the proposed fs top-level type serves to do is introduce yet another
general container type into MIME, only this time instead of being fully
general, it can only hold files instead of other things, and it has no
other internal relation to MIME structure.
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.
Right. That's what fs is all about, so I think application/fs is the only
justified type for what Al wants.
pr
--
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated
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