mime-policy.sgml

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   6 <debiandoc>
   7   <!--
   8   Debian Menu Sub-Policy Manual.
   9   Copyright (C)1999 ;
  10
  11   released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version
  12   2 or (at your option) any later.
  13
  14   The debian-policy mailing list has taken responsibility for the
  15   contents of this document, with the package maintainers responsible
  16   for packaging adminstrivia only.
  17
  18   -->
  19
  20   <book>
  21     <titlepag>
  22       <title>The Debian MIME support sub-policy</title>
  23       <author>
  24         <name>J.H.M. Dassen (Ray)</name>
  25         <email>jdassen@debian.org</email>
  26       </author>
  27       <author>
  28         <name>The Debian Policy mailing List</name>
  29         <email>debian-policy@lists.debian.org</email>
  30       </author>
  31       <version>version &version;, &date;</version>
  32
  33       <abstract>
  34         This manual describes the policy requirements for the MIME support
  35         system used in the Debian distribution. This
  36         document is part of the policy package for Debian. The policy
  37         package itself is maintained by a group of maintainers that
  38         have no editorial powers. At the moment, the list of
  39         maintainers is:
  40         <enumlist>
  41           <item>
  42             <p>Julian Gilbey <email>J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk</email></p>
  43           </item>
  44           <item>
  45             <p>Manoj Srivastava <email>srivasta@debian.org</email></p>
  46           </item>
  47         </enumlist>
  48       </abstract>
  49
  50
  51       <copyright>
  52         <copyrightsummary>
  53           Copyright &copy;1999 .
  54         </copyrightsummary>
  55         <p>
  56           This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or
  57           modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
  58           as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
  59           2, or (at your option) any later version.
  60         </p>
  61
  62         <p>
  63           This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  64           <em>without any warranty</em>; without even the implied
  65           warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular
  66           purpose.  See the GNU General Public License for more
  67           details.
  68           </p>
  69         <p>
  70           A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as
  71           <tt>/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL</tt> in the Debian
  72           distribution or on the World Wide Web at <url
  73           id="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html" name="The GNU
  74           General Public Licence">. You can also obtain it by writing
  75           to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth
  76           Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
  77         </p>
  78       </copyright>
  79     </titlepag>
  80
  81     <toc detail="sect">
  82
  83     <chapt>
  84       <heading>About this document</heading>
  85       <p>
  86         This document is distributed as the <tt>mime-policy</tt> files
  87         in the Debian package
  88         <package><url name="debian-policy" id="http://packages.debian.org/debian-policy"></package>.
  89         It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
  90         <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/mime-policy/"
  91                 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/mime-policy/"></tt>.
  92       </p>
  93     </chapt>
  94
  95     <chapt>
  96       <heading>MIME support mechanism</heading>
  97       <p>
  98         If you need assistance implementing this sub-policy, please
  99         please ask for it on the debian-devel mailing list.  If you
 100         have proposals for changes or additions to this sub-policy,
 101         please bring it up on debian-policy.
 102       </p>
 103       <sect>
 104         <heading>Background</heading>
 105         <p>
 106           MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, RFC 1521) is
 107           a mechanism for encoding files and datastreams and providing
 108           meta-information about them, in particular their type (e.g. audio
 109           or video) and format (e.g. PNG, HTML, MP3).
 110         </p>
 111
 112         <p>
 113           Registration of MIME type handlers allows programs like mail
 114           user agents and web browsers to to invoke these handlers to
 115           view, edit or display MIME types they don't support directly.
 116         </p>
 117
 118       </sect>
 119
 120       <sect>
 121         <heading>MIME support implementation</heading>
 122         <p>
 123           The <package>mime-support</package> package provides the
 124           <prgn>update-mime</prgn> program which allows packages to
 125           register programs that can show, compose, edit or print
 126           MIME types.
 127         </p>
 128
 129         <p>
 130           Packages containing such programs must register them
 131           with <prgn>update-mime</prgn> as documented in <manref
 132           name="update-mime" section="8">. They should <em>not</em> depend
 133           on, recommend, or suggest <prgn>mime-support</prgn>. Instead,
 134           they should just put something like the following in the
 135           <tt>postinst</tt> and <tt>postrm</tt> scripts:
 136
 137           <example>
 138   if [ -x /usr/sbin/update-mime ]; then
 139       update-mime
 140   fi
 141           </example>
 142         </p>
 143       </sect>
 144     </chapt>
 145   </book>
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