[AVT] Re: Comments on draft-freed-media-types-reg-01.txt

[Colin Perkins]

On 26 Sep 2004, at 06:13, ned.freed at mrochek.com wrote:
>> On 24 Sep 2004, at 16:29, ned.freed at mrochek.com wrote:
...
>> > This admits the possibility of two conformant pieces of software
>> > failing to interoperate, and that's not good.
>> >
>> >> > Now, nothing says you cannot use a naming convention of some sort
>> >> to link the
>> >> > two types in some way. But IMO they really need to be two 
>> different
>> >> types.
>> >
>> >> In which case we have two different and separate namespaces, 
>> trying to
>> >> share the same registry. This, IMHO, doesn't make sense.
>> >
>> > No, what we have is a single registry for specific formats and a 
>> way to
>> > link formats that are in some way related.
>
>> But that link is the media type name, with the domain of applicability
>> to prevent interoperability problems. This is done in RFCs 3267 and
>> 3558, for example, and doesn't appear to have caused problems.
>
> Two examples where problems haven't yet arisen in a specific domain 
> doesn't mean much. There are hundreds of media types and who knows how 
> many domains of applicability, and the rules have to work for all of 
> them.

You seem to be arguing that the media types namespace cannot be shared 
between different domains of applicability unless those domains have 
the exact same framing and parameters. I don't see this as realistic, 
since the entire reasoning behind specifying domains of applicability 
for media types is to allow for different framing and parameters.

Colin