dns media type registration tree

[Mark Baker]

Hi Keith,

On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 12:41:33PM -0500, Keith Moore wrote:
> > - it's a better form of x/vnd/prs tree, especially when combined with
> > my proposed URI extension
> 
> How does making it easier to create new types equate to "better"?

It only necessarily makes it easier by avoiding registration, but I
believe that your concern is with the implicit avoidance of the
review process.  I think you can have the best of both worlds by
revising Mark's draft to have more draft-freed-mime-p4 -like semantics.
Something like;

  While public exposure and review of media types using the DNS tree is
  not required, using the ietf-types at iana.org mailing list for review is
  strongly encouraged to improve the quality of those specifications.

Would that address your concern?

> > - it enables new authorities to establish their own review policies
> > over their part of the media tree namespace
> 
> This is NOT inherently a good thing.  There aren't many restrictions in
> the current IETF policy, and relaxing these few restrictions is probably
> not in the best interests of the network.  Sure enough, some other
> organizations  would also do due diligence in reviewing new types; some
> would do a better job than IETF.  But encouraging anybody with a domain
> name to register new types will certainly result in less review overall.

After thinking about it some more, I'd like to retract my previous
claim; the DNS tree does not enable this, because it's *already*
enabled.  Consider the WAPforum and some of their media types such as
vnd.wap-wbxml, vnd-wap-wmlc, and vnd.wap.wmlscriptc.  These were all
run through the WAPforum and its processes.  They were also reviewed by
the IETF as part of the registration procedure.

> You're talking about the DNS namespace as a whole; I'm talking about
> individual DNS names.  I agree that there will be tremendous pressure
> to maintain the DNS name space even if (say) the DNS protocol changes.
> But we've seen numerous examples where DNS names were allowed to 
> expire and were then reassigned; we've also seen a few examples where
> DNS names were taken away from their original owners and reassigned for
> apparently arbitrary reasons.

Yep.  Nothing's perfect.  If you can do any better while permitting
decentralized dereferencing, I'm all ears.

> > I expect that I disagree with MarkN on this too; I don't think that
> > the use of XML necessarily requires a multitude of media types (and
> > I'm not talking about using "application/xml" for everything). 
> > Personally, my money's on description frameworks like RDF to moderate
> > the need for new media types.
> 
> Mumble.  Multi-layer dispatching seems like something to avoid; or at
> least, to be wary of.

It's not multi-layer; the URI and the media type remain the only
dispatch points for requests.  They're just dispatching a very generic
application.

> > AFAIK, it's the only universally deployed means of mapping strings to
> > authorities on the Internet.  
> 
> In fact, that's not what DNS is.  It's a protocol for finding the
> network addresses associated with hosts and services.

Sure, but as a consequence of doing that, it also provides the string
to authority mapping.

Mark.
-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca