[vorbis-dev] Return of the Son of MIME type

[Maciej Stachowiak]

(quoting from the web archive, I only just subscribed) Monty wrote:

>
> > (a bit testy that this flamewar has started again, and no one has learned a 
> > thing from the previous rounds) 
> 
> OK, that wasn't fair... the old timers know what's up, but I do wish some of 
> the folks who bring things up would browse the archive threads or at least not 
> jump in in large numbers before realizing this has been hashed into the ground 
> many times before. 
>

Hey Monty (and others),

I just read every post in the web archive of vorbis-dev with "mime" in
the title. I didn't see any that addressed anything remotely similar
to the usability arguments I, and numerous other people, raised in
this go-around. Thus, I think "go read the archives" is not a fair
response.

Also, if people keep questioning this particular decision (including
intelligent, experienced engineers), maybe that means that the
decision should be reconsidered in light of new information.

Another data point: the fact that QuickTime has only a single file
type for both audio-only and audio/video files is widely cited as a
reason it's largely failed to catch on as a format for audio files,
unlike MPEG (which has separate audio and video mime types).

I also read over Chris Hanson's arguments where he argues that MIME
type is inadequate for selecting the application to launch for a
particular file. This simply seems bizzare, because that is the exact
purpose for which MIME types were invented. Originally this was meant
for email with non-plain-text data but over time has been extended to
many more internet protocols, and finally to nearly every desktop that
has been invented since the internet became popular (previously,
proprietary concepts of type abounded).

While the type/creator system is nice, unfortunately most files you
get will not come with a creator set, and it is a concept that is not
present on any system but the Mac. 

(Note: Nautilus does not have one and only one application per mime
type, it has potentially many, with a system default, a possible user
default, and an optional per-file default; I think the Be Tracker
works similarly. This is similar to the "creator" system but more
meaningful since it directly represents the concept of what
application you want to view a file with, rather than assuming the app
that created a file will always be the right one to view it. But you
still have to figure out what to do with a freshly downloaded file, or
one created by an unaware app, so the system and user default settings
remain critical).

And finally, I think raising the specter of edge cases like files with
multiple video, audio and slideshow streams misses the point. The vast
majority of files will not be like that; they will be simple audio or
audio with video. While it may make sense to call weird complex files
"application/ogg", using this as a reason not to call audio files
"audio/ogg" or video files "video/ogg" just because you _can_ do
something more complex seems unreasonable. A system designed primarily
around corner cases is not going to work very well.

I still haven't seen any serious reason why it would be bad to have
three easily distinguishable types:

* audio/x-ogg for files where the primary use is audio
* video/x-ogg for files where the primary use is video
* application/x-ogg for anything more complicated

This would allow users who want one true player for everything to do
what they want, and users who want different players for different
subtypes to do what they want. Why is this such a bad thing? Please
give pragmatic arguments and not theoretical ones (that's not The Way
of the Ogg format; MIME types are broken anyway; etc).

Sincerely,

Maciej

P.S. Much like Ali I was unable to find the post where
"application/x-ogg" was declared the one true mime type, though I did
see older posts that referenced such a decision. Is there some more
useful term to use to search the archive than "mime"?

P.P.S. I'm not flaming, or at least I don't mean to be. I think
everything I've said has been courteous and based on facts and
reasoning. Can't speak for others though.

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