Hi Larry, Comment ça va? While I understand the strong preference for referencing real specifications from real standards bodies, in the particular case of ZIP, there are already a few cases where leading industry formats felt it was OK to reference the PKWare site. Marcos's blog entry (http://datadriven.com.au/tag/widgets-10/) provides links to the specs for JAR, ODF, OOXML/OPC, and OEBPS, all of which reference the PKWare app note. It is certainly true that the ZIP spec is subject to change at the whims of a particular company; therefore, the key thing is to make sure that your own spec clearly defines which particular set of features from the ZIP app note are required.
Jon
"Larry Masinter"
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Subject
RE: [widgets] Widgets URI scheme
One set of questions the current specification raises are similar to the
ones that were raised during discussions of registering a zip-based MIME
type: that the referenced ZIP specification itself is not a standard,
implementations vary, and that a simple reference to the PKWare "ZIP"
specification wasn't sufficient to insure interoperability:
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-types/2007-September/001915.html
In addition, as I also mentioned in my previous message, I think that a URI
scheme that's restricted to ZIP may be too narrow. I agree with the
sentiments that led to a proposal for some way of covering rooted
directories, whether packaged or not, although I'm not certain about the
opera proposal itself:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/opera_browser/3650419.htm
Larry
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