Hi,
Many of you may be aware, that, in the WCS Standards Working Group, a
suggestion has arisen to:
Use Parameterized MIME Types to transmit format request options (parameter
values). It is flexible, it is simple, and it is how most of the web
negotiates formats.
As I understand it, this would mean that we would move in the direction of
having netCDF or CF-netCDF formally registered with IANA as a MIME type.
As it is now, we could continue with the MIME type that is used in places but
not recognized
application/x-netcdf
and apply to have that registered formally. Then we could use a profile
parameter to specify cf-netcdf3. This would look like
application/x-netcdf;profile=cf-netcdf3
That might be the cleanest approach for the moment and would probably require
minimal consideration from the CF conventions community since we would not be
applying for formal registration of CF as part of a MIME type. MIME type
issues are a bit troubling for us because it's an area most of us have only
been involved in peripherally in the past.
Of course there are many other possible approaches for MIME types we could
pursue, but, if we are going to pursue this at all, this seems to be the most
straightforward.
Any thoughts on this? Is it a good idea in general. Are there other
approaches we should consider?
-- Ben
