Media Type Registration for OCF (application/epub+zip) - Review of Informational RFC

[John C Klensin]

(internet-drafts at ietf.org removed from distribution)

--On Thursday, 06 September, 2007 21:23 -0400 Nick Bogaty
<nbogaty at idpf.org> wrote:

> To whom it may concern,
>  
> We apologize for the errors in our previous submissions.
> 
> Please see the below URL pointing to a Media Type Registration
> for the Open Container Format (OCF), "application/epub+zip",
> to be processed as an informational RFC.  It has gone through
> a two week community review period via the iesg at ietf.org and
> ietf-types at iana.org.

To be strictly accurate, it has been announced on the ietf-types
list, but there have been no substantive comments or review.  

A few procedural comments (references are to RFC 4288 unless
otherwise noted).  These comments do not address the substantive
content of the proposal.  These comments represent my personal
observations only; they are not official IETF statements or
positions.

(1) The proposed name, application/epub+zip, appears to be
intended for registration in the standards tree (Section 3
generally and 3.1 in particular).   That is acceptable if IDPF
is a "recognized standards body" and the definitional document
is one of its "formal publications".    Whether IDPF is
considered to be a "recognized standards body" is up to the
IESG, but that designation, in my opinion, usually requires some
evidence of an open consensus process (including a review
process not restricted to members).  Industry consortia are
generally not considered "recognized standards bodies".   I can
find no documented procedures for review and approval of
documents, other than a statement about work occurring in
working groups, on the IDPF web site.

(2) Name forms of a "+suffix" variety are discouraged unless the
suffix is well-established (Section 4.2). "+xml" is established
as a suffix.  "+zip" is not.  For reasons that were extensively
discussed when the media type system was established, the name
of a well-known compression scheme is probably inappropriate for
a suffix.  So, unless you propose to document the need for that
particular suffix independent of specific efforts by IPDF, I
would recommend against a standards tree registration containing
a "+" in the subtype name.

(3) The registration template at
http://www.idpf.org/draft-conboy-mime-opf-00.txt is not a
registration template for application/epub+zip at all, but one
for application/oebps-package+xml.  The link originally
announced (http://www.idpf.org/draft-idpf-mime-ocf-01.txt) is
now dead.  Please clarify what you are trying to register and
make the registration template consistent with the name and
content of your announcements to the ietf-types list.

(4) Publication as an Informational RFC requires that the
document itself be first posted as an Internet-Draft and not
merely placed in the correct format on a private web site (RFC
2223, 4844, 4846).   The relevant instructions are referenced
from 
http://www.ietf.org/ID
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.html and
http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html are particularly relevant.
I note, however, that draft-conboy-mime-opf-00.txt, cited as the
relevant registration template, has already been published, as
RFC 4839.  But, as mentioned above, it describes an entirely
different media type.   So it is, at best, unclear to me what
you are trying to do here and where the supporting documentation
can be located.

regards,
   John Klensin

  
> The application/template is located at:  
>  
> http://www.idpf.org/draft-conboy-mime-opf-00.txt
>  
> The published epub specification can be found at:
>  
> http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0/download/ocf10.htm
>  
> Please send any questions to myself, Nick Bogaty, at
> nbogaty at idpf.org.  
> Thanks,
> Nick
> --
> Nick Bogaty
> Executive Director
> International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)
> nbogaty at idpf.org
> www.idpf.org
> (212) 924-9081 direct
> (212) 208-0978 fax