Atom/RSS media type

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:15:18 GMT

Question: How come Atom and RSS are not registered media types? What do we have TODO to change this?

Atom media type is application/atom+xml
RSS media type is application/rss+xml

Found a previous attempt to register by mnot in the Google cache. At one point, this was also an IETF Internet draft, now 404. And here's a non-404 but expired copy of mnot's work.

mnot: application/rss+xml isn't registered, because the IESG wanted a "stable reference" for the spec (it being in the standards tree). So, it's technically incorrect to use it now; this is one of the reasons this is still a confusing issue.

Randy: Politics.

Link

Reader Comments

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:32:06 GMT

User comment

Media types are registered with RFCs (either complete specs or pointers to outside specs).

Atom's registration is included in the drafts and will become final with the RFCs.

RSS's registrations are hung up in a no-man's land. When RSS registration was first proposed, the IETF wouldn't accept a reference to "just a document on a website that can change at any time". Following that, Mark Nottingham had written a version of the RSS 0.9x spec as an IETF draft, but that floundered because it was "competition" with the "real" spec, so that never happened. That's the current state of RSS media type registration.

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:37:40 GMT

User comment

I guess a link to the document that covers the process would be useful :-), RFC 2048, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2048.txt .

mnot's frustration with that process is also an insteresting read, http://www.mnot.net/blog/2003/08/23/registering_media_types .

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 01:27:35 GMT

User comment

The Atom media type will be added to the IANA registry when the format spec is finalized. It's a side effect of RFC status.

Rob: Politics.

Robert Sayre

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 01:29:43 GMT

User comment

Here's the section of the draft that makes it happen:
http://atompub.org/2004/10/20/draft-ietf-atompub-format-03.html#rfc.section.10

Robert Sayre

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:33:08 GMT

User comment

http://heinz.typepad.com/lostandfound/2005/09/applicationatom.html

Randy