[JDEV] Attaching MIME types

[Sunir Shah]

David Waite wrote:

> 1. you will definately need to so something such as base64 
> encoding to send the data reliably 

Strictly speaking, I'm personally only interested in sending
(standard) XML documents. However, I believe MIME compliance 
requires base64. So, for others who may want to use the
protocol, that's ok.

The big thing is that "Jabber as pushed e-mail" (as an 
instant messaging system) should be as capable as e-mail, 
at least in situations that demand it. E-mail has had MIME 
for a long time in order to enhance it with rich content. 
At best, Jabber recommends using the <html/> subelement.
That's not as elegant as using the existing MIME standard,
which could be made more elegant itself using XML to break 
up the various encodings.

> In other words - this will not be accepted into the core 
> protocol, as it will never adequately work.

The acceptance into the core protocol is not important
insomuch as having a standardized, non-proprietary protocol
for those who want to use it. For instance, for people 
wishing to use Jabber in-office, or for non-instant messaging
applications, such as the application I intend to use it 
for. Either way, it would be nice to have at least a simple, 
*clean* jabber:x:mime standard so clients can interoperate 
elegantly, even if that "standard" isn't official, nor
required. That's what the <x/> tag is for, if I understand
it correctly, right?

As for whether the application will encourage bandwidth 
hogging, I don't know. I'll have to wait for real world
use before I know that. I *definitely* don't want to abuse
the jabber.org server. That's not my intended audience
anyway.

SS