Re: [bitcoin-dev] Proposal for a few IANA mime-types related to Bitcoin

From: Dr Maxim Orlovsky <orlovsky@protonmail•com>
To: peter@coinkite•com, bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Proposal for a few IANA mime-types related to Bitcoin
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2021 10:52:13 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <tlMZf9bYKjQH7myNPelTptqiiJsJ_F2MVE3cYEBvabqshphle5ycwdBfyYrsWvn9KZZTKc_4VzPclI2AZGZT6THfmIz_hUnHD9IgyNyQtpo=@protonmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20210901133930.GB91472@coinkite.com>

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Hi Peter,

Yep, I think it is a good idea just to do new BIP and ignore IANA opinion on the matter. I can write it since I was going to propose pretty much the same thing some time ago. I will share the draft in this mail list in a week.

Kind regards,
Maxim Orlovsky
LNP/BP Standards Association
http://lnp-bp.org
github.com/dr-orlovsky

-------- Original Message --------
On 1 Sep 2021, 15:39, Peter D. Gray via bitcoin-dev wrote:

>> ... I tried doing this with "application/bitcoin-psbt" back in
>> 2019 but it was not accepted...
>
> Thanks for this background.
>
> Based on your experience, we should probably ignore the IANA then,
> and just declare a few useful "mime types" (note the quotes) in a
> new BIP. We can then agree inside the Bitcoin community on their
> usage and meaning.
>
> Anyone want to write that BIP and shepherd it? I can support you
> but I'd rather write code.
>
> ---
> @DocHEX || Coinkite || PGP: A3A31BAD 5A2A5B10
>
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 07:46:55PM +0000, Andrew Chow wrote:
>> Hi Peter,
>>
>> It would be nice to have mime types registered for Bitcoin things, but
>> I'm not sure that it will be possible, at least not in the way that we
>> would like. I tried doing this with "application/bitcoin-psbt" back in
>> 2019 but it was not accepted. From that attempt, here is what I have
>> learned:
>>
>> There are only a few accepted top level types, so we would not be able
>> to use "bitcoin" as the top level (unless you want to submit an RFC to
>> add a "bitcoin" top level). Of the available top level types,
>> "application" is the most appropriate for Bitcoin.
>>
>> Next is the tree that the mime type should be in. The best would be the
>> Standards tree, but it has some requirements that Bitcoin doesn't really
>> meet. In order to be in the standards tree, the registration must be
>> either associated with an IETF specification (so a RFC) or registered by
>> a recognized standards related organization. Unfortunately the closest
>> thing to a standards organization that Bitcoin has is the BIPs process,
>> and that is not a really a standards organization nor is it recognized
>> by IANA. So in order to register the mimetypes as Standards tree types,
>> we would need to write an RFC, but this could be an independent
>> submission (https://www.rfc-editor.org/about/independent/) rather than
>> IETF-stream submission. I did not continue to pursue this because I
>> didn't have the time.
>>
>> Another alternative would be to use the Vendor tree, but that would
>> prefix the mimetype with "vnd." so it would end up being something like
>> "application/vnd.bitcoin.psbt". I did not think this was an reasonable
>> so I did not continue to pursue this avenue.
>>
>>
>> Andrew Chow
>>
>> On 8/31/21 2:27 PM, Peter D. Gray via bitcoin-dev wrote:
>> > Hi list!
>> >
>> > I am proposing to register the following MIME (RFC 2046) media types with the IANA:
>> >
>> >
>> > bitcoin/psbt
>> >
>> > - aka. a BIP-174 file, in binary
>> > - does not make any claims about signed/unsigned status; lets leave that to the file
>> >
>> > bitcoin/txn
>> >
>> > - aka. wire-ready fully-signed transaction in binary
>> >
>> > bitcoin/uri
>> >
>> > - aka [BIP-21](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0021.mediawiki)
>> > - could be just a bare bech32 or base58 payment address
>> > - but can also encode amount, comments in URL args
>> > - potentially interesting as a response to 402 - Payment required
>> >
>> >
>> > Other thoughts
>> >
>> > - some mime-types are proposed in BIP-71 but those are unrelated to above, and never
>> > seem to have been registered
>> >
>> > - for those who like to encode their binary as base64 or hex, that can be indicated
>> > as "encoding=hex" or "encoding=base64" in the optional parameters, just like
>> > "text/plain; encoding=utf-8" does. However, the default must be binary.
>> >
>> > - although the above are useful for web servers, they are also useful elsewhere and I
>> > intend to use them in NFC (NDEF records) where a shorter length is critical.
>> >
>> > - I have no idea how easily IANA will accept these proposals.
>> >
>> > - current approved mime types: https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml
>> >
>> > Thoughts?
>> >
>> > ---
>> > @DocHEX || Coinkite || PGP: A3A31BAD 5A2A5B10
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > bitcoin-dev mailing list
>> > bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org
>> > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>>
>>
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