[gopher] Re: Encouraging MIME types
On Sat, Sep 14, 2002 at 10:14:32PM -0500, Timm Murray wrote:
> text/text will still have a type of '0', GIF files will still have a type
I assume you mean text/plain.
> of 'g', etc. Note that files with similar types would *not* use the
> standard Gopher types. For instance, a text/html document would never be
> sent as a Gopher type of '0'.
text/html is type 'h' anyway. However, type 0 is defined to include more
than you are defining it to mean.
> 2) A new Gopher type, 'm', is to be implemented which tells a client to check
> the MIME type in the Gopher+ space.
A Gopher+-aware client should already be doing this; there is no need to
explicitly tell it to.
> 3) The 'I' type is to be either completely deprecated or used as a synonym
> for 'm'. GIF files can still use the 'g' type, but any other images should
> be sent with the 'm' type and their proper MIME type.
This breaks backwards compatibility, I suspect.
> 4) No new Gopher types are to be defined--MIME types are to be used as a
> complete replacement. The only possible exception to this is for research
> purpases, but even then, MIME types are encouraged.
I can agree with that :-)
However, overall, I don't really see any benefit to the 'm' type or the
change in meanings for '0' and 'I'. Gopher+ clients should already be using
the Gopher+ attributes (in fact, since views permit one menu entry to
actually have multiple MIME types, they *must*). Gopher0 clients are still
left with the single-character types, which I agree are a nasty thing. I
don't see what purpose breaking some of the gopher0 clients will serve, I
guess.
-- John
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