Mimetype names (Re: mimetypes for zipped files)

[David Faure]

> [1] Unfortunately, last time I looked (a few months ago), the KOffice DTD's 
> were not properly namespaced with something like 
> xmlns:kword="http://www.kde.org/DTD/2001/koffice/kword-1.1.1.dtd",

That's about adding one line at the top of the DTD, isn't it ?
In that case it's rather easy to do, please provide patch or detailed instructions ;)

> so registering a mimetype with IANA against a moving and undocumented (in the 
> above sense) DTD would just result in the world laughing at us, so I gave up 
> on it for the moment. 

"Moving" is always going to be the case.
Unless someone can tell in advance which features are going to go into KWord
for the next 15 years...

> Seeing the vast number of obsolete (since at least 
> 1996) "x-" mimetypes being added to kdelibs/mimetypes, I also get the 
> impression that the KDE project isn't interested in registering it's 
> mimetypes with IANA under e.g. the vnd.kde.* tree.

Right (see my last answer on the xdg-list, BTW I think you should subscribe
there if you're not, since mimetype stuff was recently discussed there).
Even though vnd.*.* is what the iana recommends, everyone (and by that I also
mean apache, gnome, etc.) still uses x-. I'm not only talking about the KDE mimetypes,
but also about image formats, text formats etc. Changing this now, and in KDE
only, would bring much trouble (user configuration, compat issues, etc.).
And also, this vendor-based approach doesnt' really work in the opensource world.
Who's going to be the "vendor" for application/x-dvi ? For application/x-tar? eps? cpio? xpm? etc.
IMHO it's much more practical to keep using x- stuff in the opensource world,
and let commercial people register their vendor-namespaced mimetypes.
For KDE/Gnome specific mimetypes this argument doesn't apply, obviously,
we could use vnd.kde.*, but for consistency everything uses x- currently.

Anyway: some harmonization between opensource projects should be done
concerning mimetype names, see the xdg list. If this happens with vnd.* mimetypes,
good, but unless everyone does the move at the same time, I see it as more
practical to keep using x-*.

> E.g. KWord's mimetype should have been application/x-vnd.kde.kword+xml from 
> the moment on where it was first used, and after registration with IANA and 
> _before_ the first stable release, application/vnd.kde.kword+xml. See rfc2048 
> and rfc3023 for more.
Except that a KWord document was a tar.gz, and is very soon going to be
a zip file. It's not a raw XML file. Are you sure the +xml applies?

-- 
David FAURE, david at mandrakesoft.com, faure at kde.org
http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~david/, http://www.konqueror.org/
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