Re: Atom and RDF

Hello [email protected],

r> Lucas Gonze listed the following problems with the enclosure element:

r> 1 It causes users to download big files that they will never listen to
r> or watch, creating pointless overload on web hosts.
r> 2 It doesn't allow us to credit the MP3 host, so we can't satisfy the
r> netiquette of always linking back.
r> 3 For broadband users, MP3s are not big enough to need advance caching
r> in the first place.
r> 4 The required content-type attribute is a bad idea in the first place.
r> 5 The required content-length attribute should not be there.

r> http://gonze.com/weblog/story/5-17-4

r> 1 and 3 are bigger picture issues, so arguably could be dropped from
r> the list. 2 could *potentially* be satisfied by a namespace-qualified
r> extension, but as far as I'm aware no-one is doing so. Had there been
r> a slot for this in the spec then they may have done. But ok, that
r> could potentially be fixed. Which still leaves 4 and 5 as genuine
r> flaws enshrined in the spec.

1 is a problem of the client software. I'd agree with Dare Obasanjo's
comment -- that's simply a bad use case for the element. Software can allow
the user to make a choice whether he wants to download the file or not. And
4 and 5 can help both user and software to choose the conditions when the
file should be downloaded or simply shown as a link. I'd better made length
attribute optional in order to make publishing of streaming content
possible. The situation when client software has to roundtrip to server
making HEAD queries for discovering trivial attributes is inacceptable. Even
if content-type and length will be broken, the problem can be resolved in
downloading process.

<enclosure>s are broken from the another side -- I cannot specify more than
one <enclosure>. And, the worst, I cannot specify alternative <enclosure>s
(ie. user could have a choice to download radio show in either MP3 record
format or its script in DOC).

-- 
Best regards,
Alex Kolesnichenko



 
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