At 09:32 AM 5/9/99 -0700, Paul Hoffman / IMC wrote:
Correct. Not all MIME-using mechanisms have content negotiation. Internet
mail, for example. Content-negotiation can and should be dealt with using
content-negotiation protocols. See <http://www.imc.org/ietf-medfree/> for
details.
[...]
Again, this can be handled by using content-negotiation. It would be pretty
easy to add a conneg type that would describe the type of XML that you are
passing, without breaking the example I gave for protocols that don't do
negotiation.
The need for content negotiation in certain circumstance seems real -
maybe, just maybe, I've extracted this much of a concession.
The question then becomes whether it is better to describe content in one
concise description (the MIME type) or using separate protocols.
1) What are the real 'costs' of adding a new top-level MIME type?
1a) What are the costs of adding xml- as a prefix to XML-based MIME types?
(Rick Jelliffe's proposal.)
2) What are the real 'costs' of creating separate content-negotiation
protocols?
I'm afraid that I'm unconvinced that the costs of 1 are greater than the
costs of 2. Are there genuine compatibility issues, or is this just
philosophical opposition?
Simon St.Laurent
XML: A Primer / Building XML Applications (June)
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http://www.simonstl.com