[Python-Dev] WebM MIME type in mimetypes module

[Chris Rebert]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 6:16 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
> On 12/2/2014 7:07 PM, Chris Rebert wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm seeking to move http://bugs.python.org/issue16329 towards conclusion.
>> Since the discussion on the issue itself seems to have petered out, I
>> thought I'd bring it up here.
>>
>> To summarize the issue, it proposes adding an entry for WebM (
>> http://www.webmproject.org/docs/container/#naming ) to the mimetypes
>> standard library module's file-extension to MIME-type database.
>> (Specifically: .webm => video/webm )
>> Mozilla, Microsoft, Opera, and freedesktop.org (the de facto standard
>> *nix MIME type database package) all acknowledge the existence of a
>> video/webm MIME type (see the issue for relevant links), and this MIME
>> type is in WebM's documentation.
>> However, there is no official IANA registration for WebM's MIME type,
>> and none seems to be forthcoming/planned.
>>
>> As R.D.M. said in the issue:
>>>
>>> So we have two choices:
>>> leave it to the platform mime types file to define because it is not even
>>> on track to be an official IANA standard,
>>> or include it with a comment that it is a de-facto standard.
>> [...]
>>> I guess I'd be OK with adding it as a de-facto standard, though I'm not
>>> entirely comfortable with it. But that would represent a change in policy,
>>> so others may want to weigh in.
>>
>> Nobody has weighed in during the subsequent ~2 years, so I'm hoping a
>> few of y'all could weigh in one way or the other, and thus bring the
>> issue to a definitive conclusion.
>
> If it has remained a defacto standard for the two years since your made that
> list, that would be a point in favor of recognizing it.  Have .webm files
> become more common in actual use?

I can't really speak to that personally one way or the other, but some
researching shows it's used by YouTube and Wikimedia Commons, and the
format in general seems to continue to enjoy a reasonably good level
of support (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebM#Vendor_support ,
http://caniuse.com/#search=webm ).

Cheers,
Chris