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

[Nick Bogaty]

Dear Mr. Klensin,

Thank you for your comments and I apologize for the continuing confusion
around this registration. I will follow this email with a re-submission of
our registration for OCF. To your points:

1. The IDPF is a recognized standards body which has produced industry
standards for the electronic book business since 1999 when it released the
Open eBook Publication Structure. Our process includes development of
standards within Working Groups, series of public review periods, IP review
periods and, finally, membership voting. These processes are documented in
the organization's Bylaws, Policies & Procedures, Anti-Trust Policies and
Intellectual Property Policies which can all be found at:

http://www.idpf.org/doc_library/corpdocs.htm

The specific output process for OCF is documented at
http://www.idpf.org/ocf/output/index.htm and a full record of public
(non-IDPF member) comments and IDPF responses can be found at:

http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0/download/Container_Comment_Responses_Combined
.doc

It should also be noted that a previous and recent application for
"oebps-package+xml" http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4839.txt was submitted and
approved under the standards tree in April 2007.

2. The currently adopted OCF standard uses a MIME type of
"application/epub+zip". It would be difficult to change that as it has
already gone through a standard adoption process and is used in commercially
released products.

3. This is my error. The correct registration template is
http://www.idpf.org/draft-conboy-mime-ocf-00.txt. I apologize for the
confusion.

4. Again, the template was forwarded in error. The correct template is
http://www.idpf.org/draft-conboy-mime-ocf-00.txt. With our submission to
internet-drafts at ietf.org, we are attempting to have this document posted as
an Internet-Draft. One of the options cited on
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.html is for the Internet-Draft to
"be sent as an attachment to the email, or the email may contain a URL which
points to a copy of the Internet-Draft stored on a server." We are
attempting to post pointing to a copy on our server at
http://www.idpf.org/draft-conboy-mime-ocf-00.txt.

I apologize for the confusion, I hope this clears things up.

Best regards,
Nick Bogaty

--
Nick Bogaty
Executive Director
International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) 
nbogaty at idpf.org 
www.idpf.org
(212) 924-9081 direct
(212) 208-0978 fax

-----Original Message-----
From: John C Klensin [mailto:john-ietf at jck.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 12:49 AM
To: Nick Bogaty
Cc: 'Ric Wright'; gc at ebooktechnologies.com; 'John Rivlin';
ietf-types at alvestrand.no
Subject: RE: Media Type Registration for OCF (application/epub+zip) - Review
of Informational RFC


(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