Re: [Int-dir] Intdir last call review of draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-03

["Martin J. Dürst" <[e-mail]>]

Hello Antoine, others,

Many thanks for your very helpful comments. Sorry for the delay in 
answering them. I just posted
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-05.
Please check the changes I made to address your comments with
https://author-tools.ietf.org/iddiff?url1=draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-03&url2=draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-05&difftype=--html

Please see below for some additional comments.

On 2023-09-05 21:10, Antoine Fressancourt via Datatracker wrote:
> Reviewer: Antoine Fressancourt
> Review result: Ready with Issues
> 
> I am an assigned INT directorate reviewer for
> draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-03.txt. These comments were written primarily for
> the benefit of the Internet Area Directors. Document editors and shepherd(s)
> should treat these comments just like they would treat comments from any other
> IETF contributors and resolve them along with any other Last Call comments that
> have been received. For more details on the INT Directorate, see
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/intdir/about/
> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/intdir/about/>.
> 
> Based on my review, if I was on the IESG I would ballot this document as NO
> OBJECTION.
> 
> I found the following minor issues, which I think SHOULD be clarified before
> publication: - Section 1.1 is not clear about what are the issues with the
> media type registration process described in RFC 6838. An hint about an
> explanation is only given at the end of section 3 when the author gives some
> details about the history. I think the background section should better
> highlight what are the main issues with RFC 6838 before defining an updated
> registration procedure.

Actually, I think this is addressed just before Section 1.1, where the 
documents says:

 >>>>
RFC 6838 (Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures), 
Section 4.2.7 only summarily gave criteria for defining additional 
top-level media types. This document provides more detailed criteria for 
defining additional top-level media types.
 >>>>

> - In section 2.1, the draft mentions that new top-level
> type MUST be defined in a Standard Track RFC. This is a difference from section
> 3.1 in RFC 6838, which mentions that a media type can be registered with a
> Standards Track, a BCP, an Informational or an Experimental track document as
> soon as there is an IETF consensus, and I think it should be highlighted more
> clearly.

BCP is still possible. Informational or Experimental don't need IETF 
consensus, and so they are not considered good enough for such a major 
thing as top-level types. There hasn't actually been any registration 
with the later two (not counting RFC 1437, which is an April Fool RFC), 
so I don't think there will be a big uproar like "I've always wanted to 
register this top-level type in an Informational RFC, and suddenly I 
can't.".

> - This may be a layperson misunderstanding, but the draft does not
> mention the concept of Registration trees introduced in section 3 of RFC 6838,
> while I think some examples that justify the writing of the current draft could
> have been addressed using a method described there.

standards/vendor/personal tree are now described at the start of
1. Introduction.


> For instance, in section 3
> of the draft, the example of the undocumented use of the 'font' top level type
> could have been adressed by having the actors using this type use 'vnd.font' or
> 'x.font' instead to prove the point that this top tier media type is useful
> while 'font' was documented in a draft following the Standards track. I wonder
> why the author does not encourage the use of a transitory faceted media type to
> accompany the registration of a new top-tier media type.

I don't think we want to tell people how to do things unofficially to 
then tell them how to do things officially.


> The following are minor issues (typos, misspelling, minor text improvements)
> with the document: - In section 3, on page 7, 'recommended' should be used
> rather than 'recommened' at the end of the penultimate paragraph of the section.

Thanks, good catch, fixed.

Many thanks again,    Martin.