application/votable+xml

[Norman Gray]

Markus,

On 2004 Jun 1 , at 18.23, Markus Dolensky wrote:

> application/votable+xml

I for one agree, with the qualification below.

> For an explanation why to use "+" as a delimiter, why to append "+xml"  
> to the subtype and what would happen if one decided to choose a  
> different solution see the discussion and examples in "XML Media  
> Types" (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3023.txt).

The general RFC for registering MIME types is RFC 2048  
<http://www.imc.org/rfc2048>, which is being updated at present (see  
<http://www.imc.org/draft-freed-mime-p4>).  The process is long-winded  
(as the FITS community is finding out), but doesn't look massively  
hard.

I think we should embark on the standardisation process, on the  
assumption that the VO is more than a brief fashion.  Specifically, we  
don't have to wait until VOTable is `finished', as there's no version  
information in the MIME type.

Until that point, however, we should use the `Experimental' MIME  
prefix, and should use

x-application/votable+xml

Only registered types should use the version without leading `x-'

> The only irritating bit is that I'm unable to find a mime type list  
> that is newer than 3 years. Moreover, IETF does not have a top level  
> link to MIME on their home page which is a surprise since supposedly  
> IETF is in charge of it(?). This makes we wonder whether either MIME  
> is obsolete in some way or maybe I was looking in the wrong place?

The canonical list of MIME types is  
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/>.  It's not mentioned in  
RFC2048, but is in the draft update -- I agree the IANA and the IETF  
should have a more prominent link to it.

I believe Microsoft will tell you that MIME is obsolete, and that their  
DIME is the very thing to replace it with.  This view is... not widely  
held.

I hope this helps,

Norman


--  
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Norman Gray                         
http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/users/norman/
Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK      
norman at astro.gla.ac.uk