Re: Accept: Client Profile

Bill Janssen (janssen@parc.xerox.com)
Mon, 16 Aug 1993 22:33:18 PDT


Excerpts from ext.WorldWideWeb: 16-Aug-93 re: Accept: Client Profile
Fred Williams@ccs.carlet (778)

> My comments are based on the Mail to www-talk by Tony
> Sanders ( sanders@bsdi.com ) dated Aug 11/1993 `MIME Types for HTTP'
> which had included richtext and HTTP within the text type but
> allocated TeX and LaTex to the application type.

As I say, the experiments with richtext have not been uniformly
applauded by people with naive mail-readers. There's no reason to
suppose that text/HTML would do any better (worse, probably, because
more of the semantics of the document are contained in the mark-up).

> It seems to me that because both TeX and LaTex contain the entire
> readable text, bounded by formatting, as does HTTP and richtext that
> the intent of the document could be derived even if it was not
> rendered.

Yes, but this is not sufficient criteria to place it under 'text'.
Postscript, after all, or a GIF image of the printed page, contains
enough information that the intent of the document *could* be derived
even if it is not rendered. It just may be arbitrarily difficult.

Bill