Subject: Re: [ietf-types] Mime Type Reg for "application/epub+zip"

From: MURATA Makoto <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:43:22 +0900

Dear colleagues,

In 2007, IDPF (http://www.idpf.org/) submitted a request to register a
standard-tree media type "application/epub+zip" for EPUB documents. 
There were no discussions or registrations, however.  The I-D 
at that time, namely http://www.idpf.org/draft-idpf-mime-ocf-01.txt, has
already expired.

Since then, things have changed.  EPUB has become a very important 
e-book format, and is very widely used by Apple, Adobe, Sony, Barns & Noble, 
among others.  EPUB implementations appear to use "application/epub+zip".
The IDPF EPUB WG is actively designing the next version of EPUB, namely
EPUB3, and has committed to finish it in May, 2011.

Standardization of EPUB at ISO, IEC, or JTC1 is also being discussed 
at ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/AHG4 (EPUB).    IDPF is involved.

Moreover, the EPUB WG of IDPF is currently talking about introducing
fragment identifiers for EPUB3.   A proposal is available at
http://code.google.com/p/epub-revision/wiki/ImplementationProposalFragmentIdentifier

For EPUB to be a good citizen of Internet, I think that registration 
of application/epub+zip is a necessary step.  I am wondering how we 
should go forward.  Here are some possibilities I can think of.

1) Create an IDPF EPUB3 spec,  describe everything about this media 
type (including possible frag. identifiers), and request for the
approval of IESG.

2) Create an ISO or IEC or JTC1 EPUB specification (possible EPUB2),
describe everything there, and request for the approval of IESG.

3) Begin with an I-D and describe everything there and try to reach 
 (proposed standard?) RFC status, and register the media type.

How do people feel?

Cheers,
-- 
MURATA Makoto <[email-masked]>

---

From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 01:21:56 +0100

> (proposed standard?) RFC status, and register the media type.

Well, as far as ietf-types review is concerned, if a type is actually
used, then it should be registered, the registration should not clash
with conflicting usage (like, if the type in question is also used for
something else) and the registration information should meet the re-
quirements of RFC 4288 and dependencies. From that perspective, the
options above seem relatively equal. Your third option seems to have
the best chances to produce results quickly though.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:[email-masked] · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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