Subject: [apps-discuss] A review of draft-ietf-appsawg-xml-mediatypes-04

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:09:53 -0500

This is a review of draft-ietf-appsawg-xml-mediatypes-04.

I consider this draft to be "almost ready for publication". I saw one
MAJOR- and one MEDIUM-level items that need to be taken care of, and a
variety of NIT-level items that should be taken care of at some point.

    Tony Hansen

================
Section 3.1 Application/xml Registration and Section 9.1 UTF-8 Charset

MEDIUM

In both of these sections, the text reads "(e.g. 8BITMIME [RFC6152],
ESMTP or NNTP)" and later "(e.g. HTTP)". This arrangement of text,
particularly the comma after "8BITMIME", causes several implications to
arise:

    1) that 8BITMIME as defined in RFC6152 is something separate from ESMTP,
    2) that ESMTP supports 8-bit text by itself
    3) that ESMTP does not support binary

Instead, ESMTP supports 8-bit text (only) when the 8BITMIME extension is
used from RFC6152, AND ESMTP supports binary files (only) when the
BINARY extension from RFC3030 is used.

I would like to see two changes made to these two parenthetical clauses:

  (e.g. 8BITMIME ESMTP [RFC6152] or NNTP)
  (e.g. BINARY ESMTP [RFC3030] or HTTP)

This clarifies the relationship between 8BITMIME and ESMTP. It also
recognizes that ESMTP can be used with binary files and provides a nice
counterpoint to HTTP, making the later comment "or even possible" more
salient.

================
Section 3.6 Charset considerations

NIT

Add a period to the end of the sentence ending with "or its successor".

================
Section 4 The Byte Order Mark (BOM) and Charset Conversions

When used in this fashion, "endianness" is usually the term used instead
of "endian".

================
Section 5 Fragment Identifiers

NIT

1st paragraph:

Add a space before "Specifying".

================
Section 8.2 +xml Structured Syntax Suffix Registration

NIT

Within Fragment identifier considerations, add a space before "A
fragment identifier of the form".

MAJOR

Under Change controller, it has a comment about "the XML specification"
being a  work product of the WWW MXL WorkingCore Group. While "the XML
specification" is certainly related to +xml and this is nice historical
information about XML, the statement says nothing about who the +xml
change controller is.

I'll make no comment about who the change controller *should* be; other
people can discuss that if they so choose. But assuming that the authors
wish to CHANGE the change controller from what was specified in RFC 6839,

    *) I think there should be explicit mention of this in the comments
in section 8.
    *) The statement in section 8.2 needs to say *who* the change
controller is.

================
Section 9.1 UTF-8 Charset

See comments above for section 3.1.

================
Appendix A

NIT

You might consider adding a reference to RFC 6838.

================
Appendix B

NIT

The word "spec" should not have a period after it; it is not an
abbreviation.

---

From: [email-masked] (Henry S. Thompson)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:07:38 +0000

> variety of NIT-level items that should be taken care of at some point.

Thanks very much for this -- please see below for responses, except
for the MAJOR one, which I'll reply to separately.

> counterpoint to HTTP, making the later comment "or even possible" more

This section dates back before my time as editor, and indeed appears
in 3023 (without the comma!), but what you say makes sense, and I've
changed the text accordingly.

It's not a sentence in the original -- I've added an ellipsis.

This and all other nits corrected as you suggest.

Changed in a parallel way.

Thanks again, these changes will all appear in the next version,

ht
-- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: [email-masked]
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
 [mail from me _always_ has a .sig like this -- mail without it is forged spam]

---

From: [email-masked] (Henry S. Thompson)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:20:57 +0000

Tony Hansen writes:

> Under Change controller, it has a comment about "the XML
> specification" being a work product of the WWW MXL WorkingCore
> Group. While "the XML specification" is certainly related to +xml
> and this is nice historical information about XML, the statement
> says nothing about who the +xml change controller is.
>
> I'll make no comment about who the change controller *should* be;
> other people can discuss that if they so choose. But assuming that
> the authors wish to CHANGE the change controller from what was
> specified in RFC 6839,
>
> *) I think there should be explicit mention of this in the
>    comments in section 8.

Where in section 8, exactly?

> *) The statement in section 8.2 needs to say *who* the change

I would welcome some further guidance on this point.  The change
controller field for the /xml media types themselves, in sections
3.1, 3.3 and 3.5, uses exactly the same (after typo corrected) wording.

I also note that other media type registrations from the W3C
(e.g. xslt+xml [1], exi [2]) use the same wording, plus a further
sentence: "The W3C has change control over this specification".

So, two questions:

1) Is there any reason not to use the same wording in all of 3.1, 3.3
   and 3.5?

2) If so, should that wording be

     The XML specification is a work product of the World Wide Web
     Consortium's XML Core Working Group.  The W3C has change control
     over this specification.

   ?  If not, then what?

Thanks,

ht

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xslt20-20070123/#media-type-registration
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-exi-20091208/#mediaTypeRegistration
-- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: [email-masked]
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
 [mail from me _always_ has a .sig like this -- mail without it is forged spam]

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:18:52 -0500

> Where in section 8, exactly?

Section 8 is where you introduce the other changes from 6839 to this
draft. I suggest you add a short statement at the end of it. Something
like the following would be okay:

    In addition to the changes described above, the change controller
has been changed to the W3C.

>      Consortium's XML Core Working Group.  The W3C has change control

The statement "The W3C has change control over this specification" is
exactly what is needed and completely sufficient. The rest of the
current content in that the current Change controller is superfluous,
but should be okay to leave there if you prefer.

    Tony Hansen

---

From: [email-masked] (Henry S. Thompson)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 10:29:22 +0000

> has been changed to the W3C.

Done.

> . . .

> but should be okay to leave there if you prefer.

Done, so all 4 places are now identical.

Thanks,

ht