Larry Masinter wrote:
Many current implementations of content dispatch don't allow dispatch
based on media type parameters, in any case. E.g., you can't select
one handler for "text/plain;charset=us-ascii" and a different one
for "text/plain;charset=utf8", even though you might have a more
desirable ascii-only editor and a slower or fuller Unicode-based
editor installed. So adding more parameters doesn't really help
for content-dispatch with current implementations.
I think you may be thinking about HTTP? Certainly with a mail protocol like
IMAP you can look through your inbox for entries based on values of the MIME
header fields. The example mentioned was a "mail-enabled" application. For
this application, the implementors on the IETF CALSCH WG felt very much that
the MIME header field parameters were of importance.
If your implementation doesn't want to make use of them, fine. But other
applications of this MIME content-type need it. That is the point.
- - Frank