DR 09-0032, General: Inappropriate use of "content type"

[Rex Jaeschke]

We closed this DR some time ago by adopting the following change:

Part 1, §4, “Terms and Definitions”, pp. 12

content type — Describes the content stored in a part. Content types define
a media type, a subtype, and an optional set of parameters, as defined in
RFC 2616. [Note: In many instances, this should have been “media type” and
such incorrect uses will be changed in the next edition.  end note]


I propose that we change this to the new “Deferred to Future Revision” and
not add anything now. My reasoning is that is seems odd to put into a
standard a note that admits the presence of “incorrect uses”, but does
nothing to fix them. We should also avoid promising that anything will
definitely be in the next revision, as we can never say that for sure until
that next revision has been completed and adopted.

I also thought about marking this term as “Deprecated”, which gives notice
that it might be removed in a future revision; however, without adding the
new/preferred term now, that doesn’t make sense. And even if we added the
new term, without changing all occurrences of old to new, we’d be
encouraging the use of a deprecated term, which would be bad form.

Rex


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