MIME type for diffs, *any* MIME type

[Lisa Dusseault]

Hi,

This has come up before and stalled the whole attempt to standardize  
a PATCH method for HTTP: the lack of a properly registered MIME type  
for any binary or text diff format.

The GDiff format described in http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE- 
gdiff-19970901 states the MIME type but it was never registered.  The  
IPR situation is completely unclear.  No author of this has ever  
responded to my pings.

The VCDIFF format is described in http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/ 
rfc3284.html does not choose a MIME type. The IPR disclosure <https:// 
datatracker.ietf.org/public/ipr_detail_show.cgi?ipr_id=40> states  
that AT&T grants licenses to "transmit data over the Internet under  
HTTP 1.1".   I do not want to start to interpret whether that covers  
new HTTP 1.1 methods as well as the ones that existed when this grant  
was made.  An AT&T guy responded to my emails and said he'd suggest a  
more liberal license to the lawyers but we never saw anything come of  
that.

Julian recently mentioned the POSIX 'diff' format which is most  
widely used and probably under the most liberal license due to  
existing source code licenses.  No official MIME type was ever  
suggested for this until Julian's mail but a bit of googling suggests  
that some applications informally use application/diff and this is  
probably what is meant by that.  I am unaware of an existing formal  
spec for this -- and that's the sticking point for registering this  
one -- although clearly interoperability is common.

Can we just ask IANA to register any or all of these, perhaps with  
appropriate disclaimers in the form about IPR or specification  
formality?  Surely that would be better than the status quo.  Can I  
help cut red tape here?

Lisa