Re: [syndication] Correct sort of MIME type for other stuff?

["Mark Nottingham" <mnot@mnot.net>]

My .02;

X- headers and types are officially discouraged*; it's more appropriate
(and dirt easy) to register a vnd or prs media type; e.g.,

  application/vnd.userland.opml
  application/vnd.opml
  application/prs.davewiner.opml
  application/prs.opml

(I'd put a +xml on the end of those - i.e., application/vnd.opml+xml, to
comply with RFC3023. Likewise, I believe most people now accept that XML
formats are 'application', not 'text', by nature).

Any of these could be registered at:
  http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/mediatypes.pl


* See RFC2046, Section 6:

   A media type value beginning with the characters "X-" is a private
   value, to be used by consenting systems by mutual agreement.
   Any format without a rigorous and public definition must be named
   with an "X-" prefix, and publicly specified values shall never begin
   with "X-". (Older versions of the widely used Andrew system use
   the "X- BE2" name, so new systems should probably choose a
   different name.)

and RFC2048, Section 2.1.4:

   For convenience and symmetry with this registration scheme, media
   type names with "x." as the first facet may be used for the same
   purposes for which names starting in "x-" are normally used.  These
   types are unregistered, experimental, and should be used only with
   the active agreement of the parties exchanging them.

   However, with the simplified registration procedures described above
   for vendor and personal trees, it should rarely, if ever, be
   necessary to use unregistered experimental types, and as such use of
   both "x-" and "x." forms is discouraged.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Kearney" <wkearney99@hotmail.com>
To: "rss-dev" <rss-dev@yahoogroups.com>; "syndication"
<syndication@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 6:13 PM
Subject: [syndication] Correct sort of MIME type for other stuff?


> Hi all,
>
> Since things are marching along nicely with using application/rss+xml,
how about
> a discussion on how to best use it for another format seen with some
weblogs;
> UserLand's .opml format?  A discussion with Dave Winer indicates he's
been
> favoring the using of "text/x-opml" for these files.  That sounds good
to me but
> I'm no MIME type expert.  What's the consensus on using stuff with "x-"
> prefixing?  Can anyone chime in with some commentary on the whole
rationale
> behind using text/ vs application/ and the x- prefixes?
>
> Oh and following along with things, the RSS feeds from Syndic8 now send
the
> "application/rss+xml" content-type out.  We'd like to do the same with
the .opml
> and the OCS stuff.
>
> Thanks,
> Bill Kearney
>
>
>
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