RFC 2048 (rfc2048) - Page 3 of 21

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures

RFC 2048              MIME Registration Procedures         November 1996


   3.1.2 Mechanism Specification Requirements ..............   15
   3.1.3 Publication Requirements ..........................   15
   3.1.4 Security Requirements .............................   15
   3.2 Registration Procedure ..............................   15
   3.2.1 Present the Access Type to the Community ..........   16
   3.2.2 Access Type Reviewer ..............................   16
   3.2.3 IANA Registration .................................   16
   3.3 Location of Registered Access Type List .............   16
   3.4 IANA Procedures for Registering Access Types ........   16
   4. Transfer Encodings ...................................   17
   4.1 Transfer Encoding Requirements ......................   17
   4.1.1 Naming Requirements ...............................   17
   4.1.2 Algorithm Specification Requirements ..............   18
   4.1.3 Input Domain Requirements .........................   18
   4.1.4 Output Range Requirements .........................   18
   4.1.5 Data Integrity and Generality Requirements ........   18
   4.1.6 New Functionality Requirements ....................   18
   4.2 Transfer Encoding Definition Procedure ..............   19
   4.3 IANA Procedures for Transfer Encoding Registration...   19
   4.4 Location of Registered Transfer Encodings List ......   19
   5. Authors' Addresses ...................................   20
   A. Grandfathered Media Types ............................   21

1.  Introduction

   Recent Internet protocols have been carefully designed to be easily
   extensible in certain areas.  In particular, MIME [RFC 2045] is an
   open-ended framework and can accommodate additional object types,
   character sets, and access methods without any changes to the basic
   protocol.  A registration process is needed, however, to ensure that
   the set of such values is developed in an orderly, well-specified,
   and public manner.

   This document defines registration procedures which use the Internet
   Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) as a central registry for such
   values.

   Historical Note: The registration process for media types was
   initially defined in the context of the asynchronous Internet mail
   environment.  In this mail environment there is a need to limit the
   number of possible media types to increase the likelihood of
   interoperability when the capabilities of the remote mail system are
   not known.  As media types are used in new environments, where the
   proliferation of media types is not a hindrance to interoperability,
   the original procedure was excessively restrictive and had to be
   generalized.





Freed, et. al.           Best Current Practice