Re: Possible directions for mailcap format

[Daniel Glazman <[e-mail]>]

In message <96Oct7.065858pdt."2767"@golden.parc.xerox.com> 7 Oct 1996 06:58:58, [e-mail] wrote:

> I'd rewrite your '2.1' ("Define more precisely how ...") to be:
> 
> > Specify a new format for registration of new media types by IANA
> > such that mailcap entries can be distributed electronically.
> 
> and then restrict the mailcap 'improvements' to those that are useful
> in a globally distributed context.

First, Larry, thanks for your help.

Right. Agreed and added. Any comments about the rest of the document ?

I thought about system-dependant fields (someone suggested MacCreator
and other stuff like that) but I think they are too specific and should
not be integrated in mailcap.

About mailcap distribution through a specific media-type, this is a need
for sysadmins to tele-distribute a homogenous environment to users. And
it could be an easy way to announce new media-types to a sysadmin mailing
list. Security considerations are very important but if the information
the registering authority send is limited to media-type definition without
any command line (view, compose, ...), it should be ok.

The URL default location for mailcap is, in my opinion, very important. We
need to discuss this point seriously and find something easy, rational
and secure. Such an implementation implies a minimal www library, but this is not
too difficult. I'd like to read a Netscape or Zmail developer's opinion
about that if possible. The goal is not to build a super-tool able to
deal with all protocols (this is strategy, not engineering ;-) but just
to make MIME UAs more manageable on a wide base.
In conjunction with @append macro and a web cache, this would be great !
(just dreaming ;-)

Regards,

</Daniel>