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Checking references for intended status: Proposed Standard ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (See RFCs 3967 and 4897 for information about using normative references to lower-maturity documents in RFCs) == Outdated reference: draft-freed-media-type-reg has been published as RFC 4288 ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 3555 (ref. '3') (Obsoleted by RFC 4855, RFC 4856) Summary: 6 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 3 warnings (==), 7 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group T. Hardie 3 Internet-Draft Qualcomm, Inc. 4 Expires: November 25, 2005 Editor 6 A question on Media Type Registrations 7 draft-iesg-media-type-00.txt 9 Status of this Memo 11 By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any 12 applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware 13 have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes 14 aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. 16 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 17 Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that 18 other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- 19 Drafts. 21 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 22 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 23 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 24 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 26 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 27 http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. 29 The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 30 http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 32 This Internet-Draft will expire on November 17, 2005. 34 Copyright Notice 36 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005). 38 Abstract 40 This document poses a question to the community on the future of the 41 IANA Media Type Registry. It presents three potential future courses 42 of development and asks that feedback on these be provided to the 43 IESG. 45 Table of Contents 47 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 48 2. Possible Registry Futures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 49 2.1 All media type protocols may specify handling. . . . . . . 5 50 2.2 MIME handling is the model for other using protocols . . . 5 51 2.3 Registry split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 52 3. Comments solicitied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 53 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 54 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 55 6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 56 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 57 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 9 59 1. Introduction 61 The Media type registry currently maintained by IANA at 62 http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/ was originally developed 63 in order to handle the needs of MIME [2]. It has since expanded to 64 handle media types that are carried primarily by RTP; these RTP 65 payloads do not have MIME boundaries and there are cases in which the 66 formats appropriate for RTP cannot be used in traditional MIME 67 contexts. In particular, some of the text types have been 68 contentious because their appearance within a MIME e-mail message 69 would have unexpected results if the MIME parser treated the unknown 70 text type as text/plain. 72 In a recent proposed update to the registration documents 73 draft-freed-media-type-reg-04.txt [1], the authors described the 74 history and aim of the update as follows: 76 "Historical Note The media types registration process was initially 77 defined for the purpose of registering media types for use in the 78 context of the asynchronous Internet mail environment. In this mail 79 environment there is a need to limit the number of possible media 80 types to increase the likelihood of interoperability when the 81 capabilities of the remote mail system are not known. As media types 82 are used in new environments, where the proliferation of media types 83 is not a hindrance to interoperability, the original procedure was 84 excessively restrictive and had to be generalized. This was 85 initially done in RFC2048, but the procedure was still part of the 86 MIME document set. In this revision the media type specification and 87 registration procedure has been moved to this separate document to 88 make it clear it is independent of MIME. It may be desirable to 89 restrict the use of media types to specific environments or to 90 prohibit their use in other environments. This revision attempts for 91 the first time to incorporate such restrictions into media type 92 registrations in a systematic way. See Section 4.9 for additional 93 discussion." 95 It goes on to say in section 4.9: 97 "As such, universal support and implementation of a media type is NOT 98 a requirement for registration. If, however, a media type is 99 explicitly intended for limited use, this MUST be noted in its 100 registration. The "Restrictions on Usage" field is provided for this 101 purpose." 103 The IESG notes that there have been several cases of attempted 104 registration where there was considerable resistance to proposed 105 types where the basic principles of usage by MIME parsers would be 106 violated, even where the "Restrictions on Usage" indicated that the 107 media type was not intended for use by MIME. This has been 108 manifested most recently and most strongly for proposed text media 109 types which cannot be treated as text/plain by a parser attempting to 110 fall back in the face of an unknown text type. 112 This is, of course, in advance of publication of the revision as a 113 BCP, and practice may change after publication. The IESG is 114 concerned, however, that there appears to be a disconnect between the 115 expectations of a community that expects all registrations may be 116 treated similarly and a community that expects protocol-specfic 117 registrations to be able to use rules specific to the using protocol. 119 The IESG would like to solicit further comment on this issue. We put 120 forward the following registry futures as strawmen to prompt 121 discussion, but this document is not intended in this or any revision 122 to create or modify registries; that job is left to BCP candidates 123 that have gone through the usual IETF processes. 125 2. Possible Registry Futures 127 2.1 All media type protocols may specify handling. 129 In the simplest future, this registry retains the current structure 130 and the registration document as currently written becomes a BCP. 131 The IESG expects that in this case registrations written with usage 132 limitations may indicate protocol handling that varies from that 133 originally associated with MIME and the MIME-based registrations. In 134 the text case, for example, a using protocol like RTP could have a 135 text type not appropriate for direct display to a user. If the 136 handling is general, rather than specific to a registration, a 137 document discussing that using protocol's relationship to the 138 registration may be written; an updated RFC 3555 [3], for example, 139 might serve this purpose. 141 2.2 MIME handling is the model for other using protocols 143 In this future, the registry retains the current structure, and the 144 registration document remains largely the same, but there is a more 145 explicit statement that all using protocols registering media types 146 must use them in ways consonant with the handling by MIME. Any 147 request for registration for which the media type could not be passed 148 with minimal change to a MIME parser would be denied. The 149 registrations would still retain "Usage Limitation" sections, but 150 these could only restrict, not modify, MIME usage. 152 2.3 Registry split 154 In this future, the registry is reverted to a pure MIME registry; 155 other protocols could re-use types that MIME uses but could not 156 propose new types without describing them as part of MIME. A second 157 or multiple other registries are created with their own registration 158 documents and rules. IANA and the registry reviewers would maintain 159 a policy to avoid collisions between the registries, but there would 160 be no other interconnect. 162 3. Comments solicitied 164 Comments on this document should be sent to iesg@ietf.org or to 165 ietf@ietf.org. The IESG will consider responses at least until July 166 1, 2005. 168 4. Security Considerations 170 This document poses a question to the community and does not specify 171 a protocol subject to attack. 173 5. IANA Considerations 175 This document has no IANA considerations of its own, though it may 176 affect documents that govern registrations in own or more IANA 177 registries. 179 6. Normative References 181 [1] Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Media Type Specifications and 182 Registration Procedures", draft-freed-media-type-reg-04 (work in 183 progress), April 2005. 185 [2] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipart Internet Mail Extensions 186 (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC 2045, 187 November 1996. 189 [3] Casner, S. and P. Hoschka, "MIME Type Registration of RTP 190 Payload Formats", RFC 3555, July 2003. 192 Editor's Address 194 Ted Hardie 195 Qualcomm, Inc. 196 675 Campbell Technology Parkway 197 Campbell, CA 198 USA 200 Email: hardie@qualcomm.com 202 Intellectual Property Statement 204 The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any 205 Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to 206 pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in 207 this document or the extent to which any license under such rights 208 might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has 209 made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information 210 on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be 211 found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. 213 Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any 214 assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an 215 attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of 216 such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this 217 specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at 218 http://www.ietf.org/ipr. 220 The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any 221 copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary 222 rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement 223 this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at 224 ietf-ipr@ietf.org. 226 Disclaimer of Validity 228 This document and the information contained herein are provided on an 229 "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS 230 OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET 231 ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, 232 INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE 233 INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED 234 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 236 Copyright Statement 238 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005). This document is subject 239 to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and 240 except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. 242 Acknowledgment 244 Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the 245 Internet Society.