Re: [apps-discuss] draft-ietf-appsawg-xml-mediatypes vs. JSON and BOM and UTF-8

[Ned Freed <[e-mail]>]

> I have some discussion topics for draft-ietf-appsawg-xml-mediatypes which I will send out one-by-one.
> This first one was discussed but here I'm making some specific suggestions.

> It cannot be right that everyone specifying a text-based media type should
> have to go through the process of deciding, for themselves, independently, how
> to decide between conflicting sources of information about charset, coming from
> an initial BOM, from external metadata, from any supplied "charset" parameter
> of the media type, and from internal embedded metadata such as found in XML.

It may not be "right" but it is the reality of the situation.

> If the future is UTF-8, UTF-8, UTF-8, then the two documents should say so,
> right at the beginning.

I believe the future is UTF-8, including but not limited to its use in XML, and
we should do what we can to promote it. But beliefs about the future don't
necessarily belong in an RFC.

Moreover, is this the right place and the right organization to make such a
statement about XML? The IETF doesn't own the XML specification, the W3C does.
And this is a document about how to register XML media types, not about how to
use XML.

Mind you, given my own beliefs I don't personally object to such a statement if
there is consensus to include it. I just wonder if it is appropriate.

				Ned