On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Nick Hilliard <nick@xxxxxxx> wrote: > you feel that the IETF should hold off supporting a 5 year old file format, > supported by the majority of computers in the world? > > Please excuse my naivety. I'm new around here. I'm not exactly sure of all of the IETF procedures for such things, but how about coming up with a simple policy about file formats? Something like this: ------- In the interest of 1) Facilitating work 2) Making its work available to as wide an audience as possible, and 3) Lowering barriers to participation... ...the IETF tries to the best of its ability to use open file formats unencumbered by royalties, patents, trade secrets, and other legal or obfuscation muck that gets in the way of participation by all persons. Whenever possible, formats are chosen that do not limit access due to financial ability or physical impairment. One of the simplest formats of all, plain text, has served the IETF and other groups for decades. Keeping the simplicity and open nature of that format in mind, the IETF's League of Extraordinary File Formatters [or whatever committee you dream up] may choose other file formats to be used for interchange. Whenever preparing files to share with others, please consider making the content in the files available in multiple formats. For now, the following formats are considered "Generally Regarded As Safe (GRAS)": - plain text (encoding?) - PDF (with restrictions) - HTML (some version, no scripting?) - JPG, PNG - Ogg Vorbis - Ogg Theora - [ Etc... ] If you wish to make a document available in a format not in the current GRAS list, please make a version of that document available in a GRAS format (marked as a translation). Make sure that the GRAS-formatted document retains as much of the content and other information from the original document as possible. If content or functionality are lost, please document the differences in an accompanying document "<translated filename>_lost-in-translation.txt" For example: my-lovely-presentation_v1.0.ppt my-lovely-presentation_v1.0-translation.pdf my-lovely-presentation_v1.0-translation.pdf_lost-in-translation.txt To make it possible for people to view the GRAS file formats, we have assembled a list of compatible software for multiple operating systems: [ put in a table of free/Free software for each OS here ] ----- To maximize compatibility, it could be prudent for the IETF to only choose file formats that are (as Nick mentions above) 5 years old or older. Of course, there could be exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Would the creation of some such spec/committee be helpful? -- Robinson _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf