Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel
draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel
MEDIAMAN M.J. Dürst
Internet-Draft Aoyama Gakuin University
Updates: 6838 (if approved) 3 March 2024
Intended status: Best Current Practice
Expires: 4 September 2024
Guidelines for the Definition of New Top-Level Media Types
draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-05
Abstract
This document defines best practices for defining new top-level media
types. It also introduces a registry for top-level media types, and
contains a short history of top-level media types. It updates RFC
6838.
[RFC Editor, please remove this paragraph.] Comments and discussion
about this document should be directed to media-types@ietf.org, the
mailing list of the Media Type Maintenance (mediaman) WG.
Alternatively, issues can be raised on GitHub at https://github.com/
ietf-wg-mediaman/toplevel.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 4 September 2024.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
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provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Rules and Criteria for the Registration of New Top-Level Media
Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Required Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Additional Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Negative Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Top-Level Media Type History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Registration of Top-level Media Types . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2. Initialization of the Registry of Top-level Media
Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Changes from draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-01 Onwards . . . . . 11
Changes from draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-00 to
draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-00 . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Changes from draft-duerst-mediaman-toplevel-00 to
draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Introduction
This document defines best practices for defining new top-level media
types. Top-level media types appear to the left of the slash in a
media type, examples being 'text/...', 'application/...',
'image/...', and so on. Please note that top-level media types are
different from trees (standards tree, vendor tree, personal tree),
which (except for the standards tree) are indicated immediately to
the right of the slash with a prefix of '.../vnd.' or '.../prs.'.
RFC 6838 (Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures),
Section 4.2.7 only summarily gave criteria for defining additional
top-level media types. This document provides more detailed criteria
for defining additional top-level media types. It therefore updates
RFC 6838 (Media Type Specifications and Registration Procedures).
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1.1. Background
New top-level types are rare enough and different enough from each
other that each application needs to be evaluated separately. The
main protocol extension point for media types are subtypes below each
of the main types. For formats that do not fit below any other top-
level type, the 'application' top-level type can always be used.
The main function of media types and subtypes is the dispatch of data
formats to application code. In most cases, this requires and is
done using the full type (i.e. including the subtype, and often some
parameters). The top-level type can occasionally serve as a fallback
for the tentative dispatch to applications handling a very wide range
of related formats. Please note that assumptions about the
correctness of a media type must be made carefully, as it could be
under the control of an attacker.
In some older scenarios, it may also be possible to identify a device
(e.g. a phone for audio messages, a printer or fax device for images,
a video recorder for videos, a computer for 'application' subtypes).
However, the current hardware landscape, where computers and
smartphones can handle a very wide variety of media, makes such a
scenario look somewhat far-fetched.
The top-level type can be used for user-directed information.
Besides direct inspection of the type string by the user, this
includes using different types of default icons for different top-
level types.
1.2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Rules and Criteria for the Registration of New Top-Level Media Types
This section describes the rules and criteria for new top-level media
types, including criteria already defined in RFC 6838 (Media Type
Specifications and Registration Procedures).
2.1. Required Criteria
The following is the list of required criteria for the definition of
a new top-level type. Motivations for the requirements are also
included.
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* Every new top-level type MUST be defined in a Standards Track RFC
(see RFC 8126, Section 4.9 (Guidelines for Writing an IANA
Considerations Section in RFCs)). This will make sure there is
sufficient community interest, review, and consensus appropriate
for a new top-level type.
* The IANA Considerations section of an RFC defining a new top-level
type MUST request that IANA add this new top-level type to the
registry of top-level types.
* The criteria for what types do and do not fall under the new top-
level type MUST be defined clearly. Clear criteria are expected
to help expert reviewers to evaluate whether a subtype belongs
below the new type or not, and whether the registration template
for a subtype contains the appropriate information. If the
criteria cannot be defined clearly, this is a strong indication
that whatever is being talked about is not suitable as a top-level
type.
* Any RFC defining a new top-level type MUST clearly document the
security considerations applying to all or a significant subset of
subtypes.
* At the minimum, one subtype MUST be described. A top-level type
without any subtype serves no purpose. Please note that the
'example' top-level describes a subtype 'example'.
2.2. Additional Considerations
* Existing wide use of an undefined top-level type may be an
indication of a need, and therefore an argument for formally
defining this new top-level type.
* On the other hand, the use of undefined top-level types is highly
discouraged.
* Use of an IETF WG to define a new top-level type is not needed,
but may be advisable in some cases. There are examples of new
top-level type definitions without a WG (RFC 2077 [RFC2077]), with
a short, dedicated WG (RFC 8081 [RFC8081]), and with a WG that
included other related work (draft-ietf-mediaman-haptics
[HAPTICS]).
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* The document defining the new top-level type should include
initial registrations of actual subtypes. The exception may be a
top-level type similar to 'example'. This will help to show the
need for the new top-level type, will allow checking the
appropriateness of the definition of the new top-level type, and
will avoid separate work for registering an initial slate of
subtypes.
* The registration and actual use of a certain number of subtypes
under the new top-level type should be expected. The existence of
a single subtype should not be enough; it should be clear that new
similar types may appear in the future. Otherwise, the creation
of a new top-level type is most probably not justified.
* The proposers of the new top-level type and the wider community
should be willing to commit to emitting and consuming the new top-
level type in environments that they control.
* Desirability for common parameters: The fact that a group of
(potential) types have (mostly) common parameters may be an
indication that these belong under a common new top-level type.
* Top-level types can help humans with understanding and debugging.
Therefore, evaluating how a new top-level type helps humans
understand types may be crucial. But as often with humans,
opinions may widely differ.
* Common restrictions may apply to all subtypes of a top-level type.
Examples are the restriction to CRLF line endings for subtypes of
type 'text' (at least in the context of electronic mail), or on
subtypes of type 'multipart'.
* Top-level types are also used frequently in dispatching code. For
example "multipart/*" is frequently handled as multipart/mixed,
without understanding of a specific subtype. The top-level media
types 'image', 'audio', and 'video' are also often handled
generically. Documents with these top-level media types can be
passed to applications handling a wide variety of image, audio, or
video formats. HTML generating applications can select different
HTML elements (e.g. <img> or <audio>) for including data of
different top-level types. Applications can select different
icons to represent unknown types in different top-level types.
2.3. Negative Criteria
This subsection lists negative criteria for top-level types,
identifying criteria that are explicitly not reasons for a top-level
type registration.
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* A top-level type is not a pointer into another registration space
that offers duplicate registrations for existing media types.
Example: a top-level type of 'oid', leading to types of the form
oid/nnnnn, where nnn is an OID designating a specific media
format,
* A top-level type MUST NOT be defined for the mapping of other
protocol elements to media types. For example, while there may be
some merit to a mapping from media types to URIs, e.g. in the
context of RDF, there is very limited merit in a reverse mapping,
and even less merit in creating a top-level type for such a
mapping. The same applies to other protocol elements such as file
extensions or URI schemes. The recommended solution in case a
mapping is needed is to choose a single type/subtype and put the
additional information in an appropriately named parameter. As an
example, information on a file extension '.dcat' can be encoded as
'application/octet-string; filename=foo.dcat'.
* Media types are not a general type system. A top-level type MUST
NOT be defined if its main or only purpose is to map other type
systems, e.g. in programming languages or ontologies.
* A new top-level type SHOULD NOT generate aliases for existing
widely used types or subtypes.
* Top-level types with an "X-" prefix cannot be registered, and
SHOULD NOT be used. This is in line with RFC [RFC6648].
3. Top-Level Media Type History
This section briefly describes the history of top-level media types.
The emphasis is on the aspects of the history that are relevant to
the adoption of new top-level types.
RFC 1341 [RFC1341] first defined the structuring of content types
into (top-level) type and subtype, and introduced the 'text',
'multipart', 'message', 'image', 'audio', 'video', and 'application'
top-level types. That specification also allowed top-level types
starting with 'X-'. With respect to new top-level types, it said the
following:
| An initial set of seven Content-Types is defined by this document.
| This set of top-level names is intended to be substantially
| complete. It is expected that additions to the larger set of
| supported types can generally be accomplished by the creation of
| new subtypes of these initial types. In the future, more top-
| level types may be defined only by an extension to this standard.
| If another primary type is to be used for any reason, it must be
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| given a name starting with "X-" to indicate its non-standard
| status and to avoid a potential conflict with a future official
| name.
The first time an additional top-level type was defined was in RFC
1437 [RFC1437], but this was an April Fools RFC, purely for
entertainment purposes.
RFC 2046 [RFC2046] discouraged the use of "X-" for (new) top-level
types, with the following words:
| In general, the use of "X-" top-level types is strongly
| discouraged. Implementors should invent subtypes of the existing
| types whenever possible. In many cases, a subtype of
| "application" will be more appropriate than a new top-level type.
RFC 2048 [RFC2048], published at the same time as RFC 2046 [RFC2046],
defined requirements for the definition of new top-level types:
| In some cases a new media type may not "fit" under any currently
| defined top-level content type. Such cases are expected to be
| quite rare. However, if such a case arises a new top-level type
| can be defined to accommodate it. Such a definition must be done
| via standards-track RFC; no other mechanism can be used to define
| additional top-level content types.
The 'model' top-level type was introduced by RFC 2077 [RFC2077] in
1997.
RFC 4735 [RFC4735] introduced the 'example' top-level type for use in
documentation examples.
The 'font' top-level media type was defined in RFC 8081 [RFC8081], a
work of the 'justfont' IETF WG, in 2017. This was formalizing the
widespread use of the unofficial 'font' top level type which people
were using in preference to official, registered types.
There is ongoing work on defining a new 'haptics' top-level media
type in draft-ietf-mediaman-haptics [HAPTICS].
Wikipedia (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_file_format)
reports the unofficial use of a 'chemical' top-level type. This top-
level type was proposed by Peter Murray-Rust and Henry Rzepa at a
workshop at the First WWW conference in May 1994 CHEMIME [CHEMIME].
It is in widespread use, but remains unregistered.
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Some Linux desktop logic uses what looks like a top-level type of 'x-
scheme-handler' to map URI schemes to applications. In addition, the
type 'inode/directory' is used. However, this is a purely local,
system-specific use, not intended for exchange. If exchange or
standardization are desired, a change from e.g. 'x-scheme-handler/
http' to something like 'application/scheme-handler; scheme=http' or
'inode/directory' to 'multipart/inode-directory' or 'application/
inode-directory (in all cases, properly registered) is strongly
recommended.
The document currently defining the requirements for new top-level
media types is RFC 6838 [RFC6838]. Of particular relevance to the
work in this document are Section 4.2.5 (Application Media Types) and
Section 4.2.7 (Additional Top-Level Types). These two sections are
not strictly aligned, because the first says that anything that
doesn't go under a more specific type can go under the 'application'
top-level type, while the later section allows for new top-level
types.
4. IANA Considerations
4.1. Registration of Top-level Media Types
Registrations of new top-level types follow the "Standards Action"
policy (see RFC 8126, Section 4.9 (Guidelines for Writing an IANA
Considerations Section in RFCs)).
Registrations of new top-level types have to provide the name of the
top-level type, the defining specification (RFC, or the respective
draft during the approval process), and, if applicable, some
comments. They have to contain a "IANA Considerations" section
requesting addition to the registry of top-level media types, and
have to document security considerations for the top-level types they
register.
The comments field is empty or contains short comments about the
usage of the type. Comments can be added or updated by the experts
for subtype registrations under the respective top-level type, and by
IANA itself.
There should be at least one subtype, except for registrations that
are for demonstration purposes only (e.g. the example top-level
type).
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4.2. Initialization of the Registry of Top-level Media Types
IANA is requested to create and populate a registry of top-level
media types, This should be done by expanding the "Registries
included below" section of https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-
types/media-types.xhtml (assuming this is compatible with IANA
infrastructure; if not, then there should be at least a pointer from
that page to this new registry).
For each top-level media type, the registry contains the name of the
type, a pointer to the RFC defining the type, a pointer to IANA's
registry of subtypes for that type, and a comment field.
The initial state of the registry is as follows:
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+=============+==============+================+===================+
| name | Defining RFC | Registry of | Comments |
| | | Subtypes | |
+=============+==============+================+===================+
| application | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| audio | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| font | RFC 8081 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| example | RFC 4735 | - | no registrations, |
| | | | for examples only |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| image | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| haptics | RFC | [pointer to be | - |
| | [HAPTICS] | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| message | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| model | RFC 2077 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| multipart | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| text | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | requires CRLF for |
| | | added by IANA] | newlines |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
| video | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be | - |
| | | added by IANA] | |
+-------------+--------------+----------------+-------------------+
Table 1: Initial Values for the Registry of Top-level Media Types
IANA is also requested to add pointers to this document and to the
new registry in the application page at https://www.iana.org/form/
media-types.
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5. Security Considerations
This document as such is not expected to introduce any security
issues. The security issues of introducing a new top-level media
type MUST be evaluated and documented carefully.
Changelog
RFC Editor, please remove this section before publication.
Changes from draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-01 Onwards
* See https://github.com/ietf-wg-mediaman/toplevel/commits/main/
draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel.xml.
Changes from draft-ietf-mediaman-toplevel-00 to draft-ietf-mediaman-
toplevel-00
* In the Introduction, add a Background section.
* Reorganized so that criteria come first, and split criteria
section into various subsections.
* Add reasons to criteria.
* Fixes to status and related text pieces.
* Cosmetic fixes, in particular getting rid of 'references in your
face' (e.g. "RFC ABCD [RFC ABCD]") little by little.
Changes from draft-duerst-mediaman-toplevel-00 to draft-ietf-mediaman-
toplevel-01
* Add reference to RFC 2077 [RFC2077] for definition of 'model'
type.
* Add examples of use of top-level types for dispatch.
* Remove a stray '>' before the mention of RFC 4735 [RFC4735].
* Change link to chemical/* Wikipedia page.
* Remove reference in abstract (pointed out by idnits).
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Acknowledgements
Continuous encouragement for writing this draft came from Harald
Alvestrand. Further encouragement was provided by Murray S.
Kucherawy. Both Harald and Murray also provided ideas for actual
text. Without them, this memo would never have reached even the
first draft stage. Alexey Melnikov provided the difficult to find
pointer to RFC 2077 [RFC2077] and examples for applications
dispatching on top-level media types. Additional information and
comments were received from Chris Lilley, Graham Kline, Henry S.
Rzepa, Francesca Palombini, Zaheduzzaman Sarker, Amanda Baber, Paul
Wouters, Roman Danyliw, John Scudder, Radia Perlman, Lars Eggert, and
Antoine Fressancourt. Inspiration for negative criteria or examples
was provided by Phillip Hallam-Baker, Donald E. Eastlake 3rd, Petter
Reinholdtsen, and Christian Heller.
References
Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC6838] Freed, N., Klensin, J., and T. Hansen, "Media Type
Specifications and Registration Procedures", BCP 13,
RFC 6838, DOI 10.17487/RFC6838, January 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6838>.
[RFC8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8126.html#section-4.9>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
Informative References
[CHEMIME] Rzepa, H.S., Murray-Rust, P., and B. Whitaker, "The
Application of Chemical Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (Chemical MIME) Internet Standards to
Electronic Mail and World Wide Web Information Exchange",
DOI 10.1021/ci9803233, 14 August 1998,
<https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ci9803233>.
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[HAPTICS] Muthusamy, Y. K. and C. Ullrich, "The 'haptics' Top-level
Media Type", RFC XXXX, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
draft-ietf-mediaman-haptics/>.
[RFC1341] Borenstein, N. and N. Freed, "MIME (Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions): Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing
the Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC 1341,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1341, June 1992,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1341>.
[RFC1437] Borenstein, N. and M. Linimon, "The Extension of MIME
Content-Types to a New Medium", RFC 1437,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1437, April 1993,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1437>.
[RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2046, November 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2046>.
[RFC2048] Freed, N., Klensin, J., and J. Postel, "Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration
Procedures", RFC 2048, DOI 10.17487/RFC2048, November
1996, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2048>.
[RFC2077] Nelson, S., Parks, C., and Mitra., "The Model Primary
Content Type for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions",
RFC 2077, DOI 10.17487/RFC2077, January 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2077>.
[RFC4735] Taylor, T., "Example Media Types for Use in
Documentation", RFC 4735, DOI 10.17487/RFC4735, October
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4735>.
[RFC6648] Saint-Andre, P., Crocker, D., and M. Nottingham,
"Deprecating the "X-" Prefix and Similar Constructs in
Application Protocols", BCP 178, RFC 6648,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6648, June 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6648>.
[RFC8081] Lilley, C., "The "font" Top-Level Media Type", RFC 8081,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8081, February 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8081>.
Author's Address
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Martin J. Dürst
Aoyama Gakuin University
Fuchinobe 5-10-1, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa
252-5258
Japan
Phone: +81 42 759 6329
Email: duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp
URI: https://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp/D%C3%BCrst/
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