I haven't been following this discussion too closely, but has a
top-level xml type been positively ruled out for any particular
reason? e.g. xml/rdf, xml/rss, xml/xhtml, etc. It seems to me that
if we're going to so much trouble to make sure that generic XML
processors will recognize this with suffixes and so forth, maybe what
we really have is a different top-level type? The argument here would
that not all XML (e.g. SVG) is really text.
And from even further out in left field: why doesn't MIME allow
sub-sub types? e.g. text/xml/rdf?
I can believe there are really good reasons this hasn't been
proposed. However it does seem to me that we're struggling because we
really need to attach four labels to a typical XML document:
1. That it's text
2. That it's XML
3. That it's some specific XML application
4. That it has a particular encoding
And MIME only gives us three places to work with.
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo(_at_)metalab(_dot_)unc(_dot_)edu |
Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999) |
| http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/ |
| http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764532367/cafeaulaitA/ |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ |
| Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/ |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+