Subject: [arcmedia] WG Action: Formed 'Archive' Top-Level Media Type (arcmedia)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2015 12:49:55 -0800

A new IETF working group has been formed in the Applications Area. For
additional information please contact the Area Directors or the WG Chair.

Please note that a co-chair will be added soon.

'Archive' Top-Level Media Type (arcmedia)
------------------------------------------------
Current Status: Proposed WG

Chairs:
  Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>

Assigned Area Director:
  Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>

Mailing list
  Address: [email-masked]
  To Subscribe: http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/arcmedia
  Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/arcmedia

Charter:

Archive formats are used to aggregate multiple files and other data into
a single object, often with data compression and/or confidentiality
protection (encryption).  This working group will create an "archive"
top-level media type.

There has been recent work to register media types for archive formats
such as .tar (a POSIX standard format).  There are already several
similar media types for archive formats, such as .gzip. and .zip. (see,
for example, RFC6713), all of which are registered under the top-level
media type "application".

We create top-level media types only rarely, only with Standards Track
RFCs, and only when one or more media types get special (or common, in
the case of more than one) handling that does not fit under an existing
top-level media type.  RFC6838 defines this process.

The working group will use draft-seantek-kerwin-arcmedia-type as its
initial input for a Standards Track document that creates a top-level
media type for archive formats.  The document will specify rules for
registering subtypes under that new top-level type, considering at a
minimum the issue of type suffixes, fragment identifiers, and
internationalization.  The W3C TAG work on packaging and archives,
currently in progress, will also be considered.

Either in that same document or in one of more follow-on documents, it
will produce an initial set of registrations under the new top-level
media type.

The main document will include an Implementation Status section,
described by RFC6982, to record known projects that will either produce
or consume content using the new media type.  If by the first milestone
there appears to be no implementations of the new media type expected,
the working group will conclude, without having produced any RFCs.

No other work is in scope for this working group.

Milestones:
  Jun 2015 - Base document
  Dec 2015 - Registrations document(s) (if separate from the base)