Re: draft-freed-mime-p4-00.txt

On Wednesday 26 February 2003 19:11, John C Klensin wrote:
> Joseph,
>
> For whatever it is worth, a registration in the "no prefix" (IETF) tree
> _is_ an endorsement.  I think it would be quite unfortunate to lose that.

If this is the case, perhaps the text should be changed to read:

   3.2.8 Publication Requirements
   Other than /-IETF-/ registrations in the standards tree, the registration
   of a data type does not imply endorsement, approval, or
   recommendation by the IANA or the IETF or even certification that the
   specification is adequate. 

> As a general observation, we need to be careful to not overgeneralize
> from the W3C experience and relationships.  There _is_ a special
> relationship between W3C and IETF, including the regular coordination
> efforts.   If we need to reflect that relationship in registration
> procedures as a special case (I hope that isn't necessary, but am still
> trying to think the comments through), then we should do that, probably
> in a separate document.  This one also has to cover organizations and
> relationships that, bluntly, we may trust less than we trust the W3C.

However, I'm not advocating the proposal above, it's only closer to what you 
seem to be suggesting. While I appreciate the special relationship between 
the IETF and W3C, it *is* possible to conceive that a media type definition 
from some other standards group (including the W3C) in the "no prefix" tree 
might have something in it that the IETF doesn't exactly agree with. While 
the IETF might trust the W3C enough to invite it to exist in the "no 
prefix" tree, I would not presume that means the IETF "endorses" every 
registration of the W3C, only that it probably won't screw up too bad (from 
the IETF point of view <grin/>) and if there is an issue we can work 
together to resolve it.

Regardless, this isn't a biggie, it just seems simpler to me to not look for 
"endorsements" in the tree in any case, but instead look at the 
status/level and quality of the spec, and if the IETF and W3C are 
comfortable sitting next to each other on a branch, that's that. <smile/>