Re: [jose] #50: "cty" (content type) should hold a media type

["jose issue tracker" <[e-mail]>]

#50: "cty" (content type) should hold a media type


Comment (by [e-mail]):

 Originally "typ" and "cty" values were in their own IANA type space that
 was independent of MIME types.  Quite some time ago (I believe based on
 comments from Jim), the working group decided to add a field in the types
 registry allowing the correspondence between the short-by-design JOSE type
 names and MIME types to be registered.  At the time, we also decided to
 allow the use of MIME types in those fields, which is fine in cases where
 compactness isn't a goal.

 However, for many cases, compactness is a goal, and the current solution
 is designed with that in mind, and is already working fine.  I don't see a
 compelling reason to change it at this point.  It's already used, for
 instance, in Section 6 of JWK, for indicating that a JWK or JWK Set are
 the encrypted content.  It's used by JWT for saying that a JWT is the
 encrypted content.  Etc.

 To address your concerns about the "MAY be used" language, I propose that
 "MAY be used" be changed to "is used".  You're right that the "OPTIONAL"
 phrase already covers the "MAY" intent.

 To address your concerns about MIME types being case insensitive, I
 propose that we add this text after saying that MIME types values may be
 used: "When MIME Media Types values are used, it is RECOMMENDED that they
 use the exact character case used in the registry, since this field is
 case sensitive, whereas MIME values are case insensitive."

-- 
-------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
 Reporter:               |       Owner:  draft-ietf-jose-json-web-
  [e-mail]    |  [e-mail]
     Type:  defect       |      Status:  new
 Priority:  major        |   Milestone:
Component:  json-web-    |     Version:
  signature              |  Resolution:
 Severity:  -            |
 Keywords:               |
-------------------------+-------------------------------------------------

Ticket URL: <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/jose/trac/ticket/50#comment:1>
jose <http://tools.ietf.org/jose/>