[Vorbis-dev] Clarification on MIME types

[Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves]

Thanks for the heads-up, Silvia.

On 9/2/07, Silvia Pfeiffer <silvia at annodex.net> wrote:
> The reality is that currently we cannot use any of the non-registered
> MIME types, but have to resort to the "x-" extensions while we are in
> the process of preparing the RFCs.

This is not a reality.  It's what would be called a "Best Practice".
However, we should avoid it.

Look at RSS.  application/rss+xml has been in use for years even
though the RSS board only last year started the process of registering
that media type.  For years.  There was never an
application/x-rss+xml.  Even the W3C has been using it as far as 2004.
 Perhaps even prior to that.  And to this day, application/rss+xml is
STILL not registered with IANA as far as I know.

The reality is: x-whatever frustrates developers and users alike who
need to keep up if the media type has been registered or not.  Their
frustration hurts our cause.

The registration process is so bureaucratic that it may take years
before all new media types become officially registered.  We risk
becoming unrelevant before that process is over.  We are changing
media types and file extensions to actually help promote our formats.

And think of the confusion it will cause for someone to see that
application/ogg is okay but for video it would have to be video/x-ogg.
 It just wouldn't cut well.

For these reasons, and because it appears the IETF prefers to see
actual use of media types prior to registration, I will revert your
edits in the wiki if you do not disagree.

> At this point, I would not put them together. I would write a Ogg MIME
> types RFC which needs to include the adaptation to application/ogg,
> and the new audio/ogg and video/ogg ones. These need to describe where
> all the existing and new file extensions fit and how it is all
> structured.

Alright.


-Ivo