Re: [apps-discuss] font/* (and draft-freed-media-type-regs)

[Ned Freed <[e-mail]>]

> On 2011/11/13 5:25, Larry Masinter wrote:
> > I see no use case for why having font/opentype is any better than application/opentype

> It's just fine if you, and some others, don't see it. Does that mean
> that you have to fight against it? You haven't shown, even less
> mentioned, any problem for font/opentype.

Good point. I have no skin in this particular game - aside from slightly
complicating the media review process I have no personal need for font/*. But
if there's a constituency this type helps, I'm all for it.

> My guess is that we would have around 10 or so font types registered
> (and no font type sniffing) if a font/ top level type had been approved
> in a 1990'ish timeframe.

And we may or may not have any luck rectifying this at this late date. But I'm
not  seeing a reason not to try.

> ...

> > I also recall a number of years ago an attempt to define "chemical/*" as a
> > new top level type for use in defining file formats?

> So what? Were there good reasons to reject it? Or was it rejected
> because some people believed that new top level types were "A BIG
> NO-NO"? Or because of some FUD?

Didn't chemical kind of morph into model? Or am I getting the history confused?

> > My conclusion from this discussion is that we should declare the MIME
> > hierarchy closed to new top level types; we've only gotten very limited use and
> > value out of the hierarchy, compared to the pain and difficulty (text/xml vs
> > application/xml).

> The problems between text/xml and application/xml are very specific. And
> they may be interpreted to say that tying particular processing rules to
> particular types, unless absolutely necessary (e.g. structured types),
> may be a bad idea. That doesn't mean that top-level types in general are
> a bad idea.

Agreed.

> The reason that we have gotten very little value out of registering new
> top level types may be mostly that virtually no new types have been
> registered, because people are claiming that we get very little value
> out of them. It sounds funny, but it isn't.

No, it really isn't funny, is it?

				Ned