Re: Last Call: 'The APPLICATION/MBOX Media-Type' to Proposed Standard

> > A definitive authoritative specification for all variations of the
> > mbox database format is explicitly not the objective, for several
> > reasons.

> that's fine.  I fully support registering application/mbox as a media
> type.

> > For
> > one thing, such a definition is outside the IETF's purview, the same
> > as a definition for Outlook or Eudora or other vendor/platform-centric
> > database formats would be.

> I have to disagree here.  Perhaps standardizing mbox would be outside
> of IETF's purview, but I think it would be valuable for IETF to publish
> a peer-reviewed Informational description of (1) existing practice for
> mbox files and (2) recommended practice for reading and writing mbox
> files.  I just don't think that this should be critical path for getting
> application/mbox registered.

I agree. Such a specification shouldn't be a requirement for this registration,
but an informational document would be a nice thing to have. Whether or not
sufficient energy exists to get it done is another matter - a similar
informational document on the many variations of uuencode has been on my to-do
for well over a decade now, and I don't see myself getting to it any time
soon...

				Ned

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