Simon St.Laurent wrote,
2) People have grown accustomed to the basic top-level
types carrying meaningful information. The Content-Feature
approach would mean that Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
would be application/xml; Content-Feature=svg -- not not
image/svg-xml. The contents of those two descriptions are
significantly different, though they purport to describe
the same thing.
To my mind this is the core of the problem. What we've got is
*two* hierarchical classifications of resource types: the MIME
type/subtype one; and the xml/xml-application one.
Unfortunately these two hierarchies are othogonal, as the svg
example illustrates quite neatly. This means we won't be able
to encode one in the other without either information loss or
special processing of some sort.
Cheers,
Miles
--
Miles Sabin Cromwell Media
Internet Systems Architect 5/6 Glenthorne Mews
+44 (0)20 8817 4030 London, W6 0LJ, England
msabin(_at_)cromwellmedia(_dot_)com http://www.cromwellmedia.com/