Re: Registering a media type for Debian binary packages ?

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Sat, 2013-11-23 at 11:28:09 +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> reading the Launchpad bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1022824,
> asking to add application/x-deb to /etc/mime.types, and giving the link to
> another bug where it is mentionned that application/x-debian-package is still
> in circulation, I wonder if it would make sense to register a proper media type
> for Debian binary packages to the IANA.
> 
>     http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/mediatypes.pl
> 
> This is a very simple procedure, for example we already have
> text/vnd.debian.copyright there.
> 
>     http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/vnd.debian.copyright
> 
> The media type for Debian binary packages would be something like
> application/vnd.debian.binary or application/vnd.debian.binary-package.

> Any thoughts, comments, or volunteers ?

This sounds great in theory, but I'm worried that in practice this
might just make the situation worse, by making applications having
to support not two, but three media types for undetermined periods
of time?

OTOH, this might make it clearer for developers, what's the proper
media type to use, so I will note down to possibly prepare a draft
for this in the coming weeks, if it ends up making sense to do it.

Thanks,
Guillem