Re: [apps-discuss] W3C TAG Comment on Draft Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures

[Ned Freed <[e-mail]>]

> The W3C Technical Architecture Group have been concerned about conflicting
> sources of definitions of fragment identifier semantics located by
> following RFC 3986 and the media type definition. We believe that those
> defining and registering media types (including ones that follow generic
> rules such as 3023bis) need more explicit advice than currently contained
> within draft-ietf-appsawg-media-type-regs.

> In particular, we are working on defining best practice for use and
> definition of fragment identifier semantics, and the document
> http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/mimeTypesAndFragids-2011-08-12 is under
> development (although it has not been formally reviewed or approved by the
> TAG).

Referencing a developing draft, rather than a final specification, especially
when the reference is pretty clearly going to be normative, is going to be a
major problem.

> We believe media type registration authors should be pointed to these
> recommendations by reference from draft-ietf-appsawg-media-type-regs.

See above. If my understanding of the rules is correct, that's really not
possible until your specification is stable. What is something in the final
version conflicts in some way? What if something in the final version is
rejected by IETF consensus?

This is exactly why I refrained from adding a reference to the xdash document
until it was clearly stable, and why I considered every other alternative
before very reluctantly adding a reference to the mime-default-charset
specification. And these are both specifications internal to the IETF.

> We would like to coordinate the development of these documents effectively
> and would appreciate your feedback on how best to accomplish this.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it sure would have been nice to
have been aware of this at some point in the last 10 months (the -00 version of
this revision was posted as a draft on 13-Jun-2011), instead of on the day
before the end of the WGLC.

Anyway, since I'm just the editor here and not one of the people managing the
process, I'm going to defer to the document shepard, WG chairs, and the Apps
ADs as to what should happen now. But the one thing I'm definitely not going to
do on my own is add a reference to a developing document.

				Ned