ietf-xml-mime
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Re: Using CONNEG instead of MIME types for compound types & references

1999-05-11 07:32:23
 From: Frank Boumphrey <bckman(_at_)ix(_dot_)netcom(_dot_)com>

Let's solve the problems that caused us to start this mailing
list in the first place; those problems include the problems
of properly labelling XHTML with various kinds of embedded
tables, math, markup and use of features.

I would like to reiterate these problems, it is the problem of
how a user agent treats an XHTML file.

Oh I see the problem: I thought this list was for improving RFC 2376
following on from Murata-san's original list of problems. But Frank B and
Larry M are saying that the pressing problem is in fact how to make RFC 2376
handle XHTML.

That means widening the scope of discussion from the simple XML-specific
categories of

* generic documents (*/xml)
* application-specific documents (application/*)
* application-specific documents with fallback/manageability
    (application/xml[-.]*)

because XHTML does not fit in any of those categories. Instead its category
is

* application-specific framework documents with application-specific
extensions and possibly some embedded generic bits (e.g., XHTML with MathML
and "XML Data Islands")

(N.b. I am using application-specific to mean that the nominal target
application of the document has functionality hardwired to the element type
names; a generic applicaton is one in which uses stylesheets and scripts.)

I wasn't suggesting that we avoid this topic, merely that we should avoid
the multipart packaging issue. There is supposed to be a W3C working group
on packaging (according to appendix B of the Fragment Interchange spec.): I
wonder what their requirements are?

Rick Jelliffe