Applications Area Working Group                              A. Melnikov
Internet-Draft                                             Isode Limited
Updates: 2046 (if approved)                                   J. Reschke
Intended status: Standards Track                              greenbytes
Expires: August 4, 2012                                 February 1, 2012


         Update to MIME regarding Charset Parameter Handling in
                          Textual Media Types
               draft-ietf-appsawg-mime-default-charset-00

Abstract

   This document changes RFC 2046 rules regarding default charset
   parameter values for text/* media types to better align with common
   usage by existing clients and servers.

Status of this Memo

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   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on August 4, 2012.

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   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1.          Introduction and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.          Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   3.          New rules for default charset parameter values for
               text/* media types  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   4.          Default charset parameter value for text/plain
               media type  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   5.          Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   6.          IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   7.          References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   7.1.        Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   7.2.        Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   Appendix A. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
               Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5




































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.  Introduction and Overview

   [RFC2046] specified that the default charset parameter (i.e. the
   value used when it is not specified) is "US-ASCII".  [RFC2616]
   changed the default for use by HTTP to be "ISO-8859-1".  This
   encoding is not very common for new text/* media types and a special
   rule in HTTP adds confusion about which specification ([RFC2046] or
   [RFC2616]) is authoritative in regards to the default charset for
   text/* media types. [[anchor2: At the time of writing of this
   document the IETF HTTPBIS WG is working on an update to RFC 2616
   which removes the default charset of "ISO-8859-1" for "text/*" media
   types.  It is expected that the set of HTTPBIs documents will
   reference this document in order to use the updated rules of default
   charset in "text/*" media types.]]

   Many complex text subtypes such as text/html [RFC2854] and text/xml
   [RFC3023] have internal (to their format) means of describing the
   charset.  Many existing User Agents ignore the default of "US-ASCII"
   rule for at least text/html and text/xml.

   This document changes RFC 2046 rules regarding default charset
   parameter values for text/* media types to better align with common
   usage by existing clients and servers.


.  Conventions Used in This Document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].


.  New rules for default charset parameter values for text/* media
    types

   Section 4.1.2 of [RFC2046] says:

      The default character set, which must be assumed in the absence of
      a charset parameter, is US-ASCII.

   As explained in the Introduction section this rule is considered to
   be outdated, so this document replaces it with the following set of
   rules:

   Each subtype of the "text" media type which uses the "charset"
   parameter can define its own default value for the "charset"
   parameter, including absence of any default.




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   In order to improve interoperability with deployed agents, "text/*"
   media type definitions SHOULD either a) specify that the "charset"
   parameter is not used for the defined subtype, because the charset
   information is transported inside the payload (as in "text/xml") or
   b) require explicit unconditional inclusion of the "charset"
   parameter eliminating the need for a default value.  In accordance
   with option (a), above, "text/*" media types that can transport
   charset information inside the corresponding payloads, specifically
   including "text/html" and "text/xml", SHOULD NOT specify the use of a
   "charset" parameter, nor any default value, in order to avoid
   conflicting interpretations should the charset parameter value and
   the value specified in the payload disagree.

   New subtypes of the "text" media type, thus, SHOULD NOT define a
   default "charset" value.  If there is a strong reason to do so
   despite this advice, they SHOULD use the "UTF-8" [RFC3629] charset as
   the default.

   Specifications of how to specify the "charset" parameter, and what
   default value, if any, is used, are subtype-specific, NOT protocol-
   specific.  Protocols that use MIME, therefore, MUST NOT override
   default charset values for "text/*" media types to be different for
   their specific protocol.  The protocol definitions MUST leave that to
   the subtype definitions.


.  Default charset parameter value for text/plain media type

   The default charset parameter value for text/plain is unchanged from
   [RFC2046] and remains as "US-ASCII".


.  Security Considerations

   TBD.  Guessing of default charset is a security problem.  Conflicting
   information in-band vs out-of-band is also a security problem.


.  IANA Considerations

   This document asks IANA to update the "text" subregistry of the Media
   Types registry to additionally point to this document.


.  References

7.1.  Normative References




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   [RFC2046]  Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
              November 1996.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.

7.2.  Informative References

   [RFC2616]  Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
              Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
              Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.

   [RFC2854]  Connolly, D. and L. Masinter, "The 'text/html' Media
              Type", RFC 2854, June 2000.

   [RFC3023]  Murata, M., St. Laurent, S., and D. Kohn, "XML Media
              Types", RFC 3023, January 2001.


Appendix A.  Acknowledgements

   Many thanks to Ned Freed and John Klensin for comments and ideas that
   motivated creation of this document, and to Barry Leiba for suggested
   text.


Authors' Addresses

   Alexey Melnikov
   Isode Limited
   5 Castle Business Village
   36 Station Road
   Hampton, Middlesex  TW12 2BX
   UK

   Email: Alexey.Melnikov@isode.com


   Julian F. Reschke
   greenbytes GmbH
   Hafenweg 16
   Muenster, NW  48155
   Germany




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   Email: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de
   URI:   http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/

















































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