Re: I-D Action:draft-pantos-http-live-streaming-01.txt

["Roy T. Fielding" <fielding at gbiv.com>]

On Jun 9, 2009, at 4:45 AM, Internet-Drafts at ietf.org wrote:

> A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts  
> directories.
>
> 	Title           : HTTP Live Streaming
> 	Author(s)       : R. Pantos
> 	Filename        : draft-pantos-http-live-streaming-01.txt
> 	Pages           : 17
> 	Date            : 2009-06-08
>
> This document describes a protocol for transmitting unbounded streams
> of multimedia data over HTTP.  It specifies the data format of the
> files and the actions to be taken by the server (sender) and the
> clients (receivers) of the streams.  It describes version 1.0 of this
> protocol.
>
> A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-pantos-http-live- 
> streaming-01.txt

I find this draft to be quite annoying.  It doesn't have anything
to do with HTTP or live, or really even streaming -- the title is
just from the marketing term that Apple has chosen to describe this
concept in general.

What the draft defines is a set of media type extensions to the
unregistered "audio/x-mpegurl" media type (M3U Playlist format)
that provide additional information for an indirect request of a
stream via sequential requests on the listed URIs.  While I think
that might be a fine idea, it should start by registering the
media type being extended, and the title/introduction should reflect
what the document defines so that the right people will review it
prior to publication.  I don't like it when the IETF is abused
for marketing purposes.

....Roy