at the IETF plenary last week:
16. Use of MIME types for "document-format"
Currently, the model document specifies the use of Printer MIB
enumerations for specification of document-format. In addition,
at a recent IPP meeting, it was agreed that enumerations for
PDF and HTML would be added to this list.
Upon hearing the proposed alignment with the Printer MIB for
these values, "a lively discussion ensued".
It was the opinion of Larry Masinter (chair of HTTP WG), Keith
Moore, and most of the IETF audience that alignment with the
Printer MIB was a mistake, and that we should focus on sticking
with MIME-type specifications.
Further, Keith Moore went on to say that the current draft of
the Printer MIB was "broken", and that he is seriously
considering delaying advancement of the Printer MIB draft until
this (and possibly other) issues are addressed. Keith did not
go into any detailed analysis of why the MIB was broken, but
seemed to suggest that there were more than one reason why it's
broken. He went on to say that its possible that (ironically)
the IESG might suggest to the working group that the Printer
MIB should align itself with the MIME-types and change the way
that interpreters are enumerated in the MIB. He suggested that
the group should consider strings, and not enumerations, to
specify these types (i.e., MIME types). Keith was pretty adamant
on this issue and would have conntinued discussion, but Steve Z.
and Scott suggested that discussion on the Printer MIB was
not appropriate at an IPP WG meeting.
This is *most* disconcerting. Can someone shed some light on this
situation?
In particular, I find it rather disappointing that such statements
were made in Germany...yet nothing of the sort was posted on the
mailing list.
I could have sworn that ALL public comments were supposed to be
published on the mailing lists.
...jay