> >I do believe that, someday, someone should try to write up an > >up-to-date description of the difference that recognizes the > >fact that compressed files are in use as media types with > >application/zip (in assorted spellings) and application/gzip > >(from this spec and in assorted spellings) as examples. But I > >now believe it is a separate task that should not block this > >document or registration. That pretty much sums up my view as well. > I'll be happy to do that if I can ever find enough spare time to write > it. > You're right, it would be nice if there were some way to distinguish > containers from content in MIME types. But given the existing > historical mess, and that some kinds of compression are just a > different way to encode a bunch of bits (zlib) whereas others are more > like a small filesystem (zip and tgz), even if we could start with a > clean sheet it's not obvious to me what would be the best thing to do. This is further complicated by the fact that there are now a number of types defined that are actually zip with specific semantics attached to the content. There are also types defined for use only within such containers. Ned