| Internet-Draft | New Top-level Media Types | July 2024 |
| Dürst | Expires 6 January 2025 | [Page] |
This document defines best practices for defining new top-level media types. It also introduces a registry for top-level media types, and contains a short history of top-level media types. It updates RFC 6838.¶
[RFC Editor, please remove this paragraph.] Comments and discussion about this document should be directed to media-types@ietf.org, the mailing list of the Media Type Maintenance (mediaman) WG. Alternatively, issues can be raised on GitHub at https://github.com/ietf-wg-mediaman/toplevel.¶
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This document defines best practices for defining new top-level media types. Top-level media types ('top-level types' for short) appear to the left of the slash in a media type, examples being 'text/...', 'application/...', 'image/...', and so on. Please note that top-level types are different from trees (standards tree, vendor tree, personal tree), which (except for the standards tree) are indicated immediately to the right of the slash with a prefix of '.../vnd.' or '.../prs.'. RFC 6838 [RFC6838], Section 4.2.7 only summarily gave criteria for defining additional top-level types. This document provides more detailed criteria for defining additional top-level types. It therefore updates RFC 6838 [RFC6838].¶
New top-level types are rare enough and different enough from each other that each application needs to be evaluated separately. The main protocol extension point for media types are subtypes below each of the main types. For formats that do not fit below any other top-level type, the 'application' top-level type can always be used.¶
The main function of media types and subtypes is the dispatch of data formats to application code. In most cases, this requires and is done using the full type (i.e. including the subtype, and often some parameters). The top-level type can occasionally serve as a fallback for the tentative dispatch to applications handling a very wide range of related formats. Please note that assumptions about the correctness of a media type must be made carefully, as it could be under the control of an attacker.¶
In some older scenarios, it may also have been possible to identify a device (e.g. a phone for audio messages, a printer or fax device for images, a video recorder for videos, a computer for 'application' subtypes). However, the current hardware landscape, where computers and smartphones can handle a very wide variety of media, makes such a scenario look somewhat far-fetched.¶
The top-level type can be used for user-directed information. Besides direct inspection of the type string by the user, this includes using different types of default icons for different top-level types.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
This section describes the rules and criteria for new top-level types, including criteria already defined in RFC 6838 [RFC6838].¶
The following is the list of required criteria for the definition of a new top-level type. Motivations for the requirements are also included.¶
This subsection lists negative criteria for top-level types, identifying criteria that are explicitly not reasons for a top-level type registration.¶
This section briefly describes the history of top-level types. The emphasis is on the aspects of the history that are relevant to the adoption of new top-level types.¶
RFC 1341 [RFC1341] first defined the structuring of content types into (top-level) type and subtype, and introduced the 'text', 'multipart', 'message', 'image', 'audio', 'video', and 'application' top-level types. That specification also allowed top-level types starting with 'X-'. With respect to new top-level types, it said the following:¶
An initial set of seven Content-Types is defined by this document. This set of top-level names is intended to be substantially complete. It is expected that additions to the larger set of supported types can generally be accomplished by the creation of new subtypes of these initial types. In the future, more top-level types may be defined only by an extension to this standard. If another primary type is to be used for any reason, it must be given a name starting with "X-" to indicate its non-standard status and to avoid a potential conflict with a future official name.¶
The first time an additional top-level type was defined was in RFC 1437 [RFC1437], but this was an April Fools RFC, purely for entertainment purposes.¶
RFC 2046 [RFC2046] discouraged the use of "X-" for (new) top-level types, with the following words:¶
In general, the use of "X-" top-level types is strongly discouraged. Implementors should invent subtypes of the existing types whenever possible. In many cases, a subtype of "application" will be more appropriate than a new top-level type.¶
RFC 2048 [RFC2048], published at the same time as RFC 2046 [RFC2046], defined requirements for the definition of new top-level types:¶
In some cases a new media type may not "fit" under any currently defined top-level content type. Such cases are expected to be quite rare. However, if such a case arises a new top-level type can be defined to accommodate it. Such a definition must be done via standards-track RFC; no other mechanism can be used to define additional top-level content types.¶
The 'model' top-level type was introduced by RFC 2077 [RFC2077] in 1997.¶
RFC 4735 [RFC4735] introduced the 'example' top-level type for use in documentation examples.¶
The 'font' top-level type was defined in RFC 8081 [RFC8081], a work of the 'justfont' IETF WG, in 2017. This was formalizing the widespread use of the unofficial 'font' top-level type which people were using in preference to official, registered types.¶
There is ongoing work on defining a new 'haptics' top-level type in draft-ietf-mediaman-haptics [HAPTICS].¶
Wikipedia (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_file_format) reports the unofficial use of a 'chemical' top-level type. This top-level type was proposed by Peter Murray-Rust and Henry Rzepa at a workshop at the First WWW conference in May 1994 CHEMIME [CHEMIME]. It is in widespread use, but remains unregistered.¶
Some Linux desktop logic uses what looks like a top-level type of 'x-scheme-handler' to map URI schemes to applications. In addition, the type 'inode/directory' is used. However, this is a purely local, system-specific use, not intended for exchange. If exchange or standardization are desired, a change from e.g. 'x-scheme-handler/http' to something like 'application/scheme-handler; scheme=http' or 'inode/directory' to 'multipart/inode-directory' or 'application/inode-directory (in all cases, properly registered) is strongly recommended.¶
The document currently defining the requirements for new top-level media types is RFC 6838 [RFC6838]. Of particular relevance to the work in this document are Section 4.2.5 (Application Media Types) and Section 4.2.7 (Additional Top-Level Types). These two sections are not strictly aligned, because the first says that anything that doesn't go under a more specific type can go under the 'application' top-level type, while the later section allows for new top-level types.¶
Registrations of new top-level types follow the "Standards Action" policy (see RFC 8126, Section 4.9 [RFC8126]).¶
Registrations of new top-level types have to provide the name of the top-level type, the defining specification (RFC, or the respective draft during the approval process), and, if applicable, some comments. They have to contain a "IANA Considerations" section requesting addition to the registry of top-level media types, and have to document security considerations for the top-level types they register.¶
The comments field is empty or contains short comments about the usage of the type. Comments can be added or updated by the experts for subtype registrations under the respective top-level type, and by IANA itself.¶
There should be at least one subtype, except for registrations that are for demonstration purposes only (e.g. the example top-level type).¶
IANA is requested to create and populate a registry of top-level media types, This should be done by expanding the "Registries included below" section of https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml (assuming this is compatible with IANA infrastructure; if not, then there should be at least a pointer from that page to this new registry).¶
For each top-level media type, the registry contains the name of the type, a pointer to the RFC defining the type, a pointer to IANA's registry of subtypes for that type, and a comment field.¶
The initial state of the registry is as follows:¶
| name | Defining RFC | Registry of Subtypes | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| application | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| audio | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| example | RFC 4735 | - | no registrations, for examples only |
| font | RFC 8081 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| haptics | RFC [HAPTICS] | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| image | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| message | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| model | RFC 2077 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| multipart | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
| text | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | requires CRLF for newlines |
| video | RFC 2046 | [pointer to be added by IANA] | - |
IANA is also requested to add pointers to this document and to the new registry in the application page at https://www.iana.org/form/media-types.¶
This document as such is not expected to introduce any security issues. The security issues of introducing a new top-level media type MUST be evaluated and documented carefully.¶
RFC Editor, please remove this section before publication.¶
Continuous encouragement for writing this draft came from Harald Alvestrand. Further encouragement was provided by Murray S. Kucherawy. Both Harald and Murray also provided ideas for actual text. Without them, this memo would never have reached even the first draft stage. Alexey Melnikov provided the difficult to find pointer to RFC 2077 [RFC2077] and examples for applications dispatching on top-level types. Additional information and comments were received from Chris Lilley, Graham Kline, Henry S. Rzepa, Francesca Palombini, Zaheduzzaman Sarker, Amanda Baber, Paul Wouters, Roman Danyliw, John Scudder, Radia Perlman, Lars Eggert, and Antoine Fressancourt. Inspiration for negative criteria or examples was provided by Phillip Hallam-Baker, Donald E. Eastlake 3rd, Petter Reinholdtsen, and Christian Heller.¶