Re: [ubl-dev] Re: [TC Admin] MIME type for UBL documents

Hi David

Interesting use case! We had your question on the agenda for this week’s TC meeting and we are all very impressed and excited that you are able to use UBL in this manner!

We understand that you want a desktop operating system to recognize that a given file (such as from a website or an email) is in UBL format so that it will be opened with your application. To do that you need to 1) make sure the receiver have your application installed, and 2) have the originator (website or email sender) “mark” it as UBL (using a specific media type or filename extension). In other words, there needs to be an already established convention between the originator and the receiver that the UBL file is intended to be opened with your application. There furthermore needs to be a convention as to localization of data model, etc. for this to work. For example, a UBL document conforming to the localization/specifications of the DIAN in Colombia would probably not open well in your application. We therefore recommend an application specific approach, such as the registration of a proprietary filename extension (*.ubl?) or similar to associate these files with your application. We are concerned about the broader implications of the registration of a “generic” IANA media type.

Good luck, and please keep us updated on your progress with the project!!

Best regards,

Kenneth

From: Chet Ensign <chet.ensign@oasis-open.org>
Date: Monday, December 12, 2022 at 3:53 PM
To: david.goodenough@broadwellmanor.co.uk <david.goodenough@broadwellmanor.co.uk>
Cc: ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org <ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org>, tc-admin@oasis-open.org <tc-admin@oasis-open.org>
Subject: [ubl-dev] Re: [TC Admin] MIME type for UBL documents

I will look into the mechanics of addressing this with IANA. I will need the UBL TC to confirm that they want to do this.

/chet

On Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 7:59 AM David Goodenough <david.goodenough@broadwellmanor.co.uk> wrote:

As you might recall I have written (and am close to releasing) an email based UBL document management application.

I need to be able to mark the attached document so that if you choose to Open it from your mail client (or browser) my application gets started. When the volume of documents is high, I would suggest the use of a dedicated email address for such documents, and my application would receive all the mail to that address and process it as UBL, but for small users who only get a few documents per day that might be difficult to set up and the extra work of Opening the attached document (or dragging and dropping or cutting and pasting it to an open copy of my application) might be simpler.

The rules for MIME types give me only option, application/xml (or text/xml they are apparently regarded as the same these days), but this is used for all manner of document and I only want UBL documents sent to my application.

There would be the option of using application/ubl+xml, but that requires IANA registration which I would guess is a long process.

There is however another possible place in the MIME definitiins that I could use, application/vnd.oasis.??? which currently has subtypes of vnd.oasis.opendocument.??? , but nothing for UBL.

Would it be possible for the UBL committee to ask the Oasis TC (tc-admin@oasis-open.org who IANA say is responsible for vnd.oasis) to add a UBL equivalent of opendocument? I think that this only requires allocation by Oasis, but the TC would probably know the process they went through with OpenDocument and thus what would be required for UBL. I have copied tc-admin on this email for their comment as well.

I see no point in marking each UBL document type individually (i.e. application/vnd.oasis.ubl.invoice separate from application.oasis.ubl.order), so we only need one entry, application/vnd.oasis.ubl and the receiver can then use the XML document to route appropriately.

Personally I also consider that using the full application/vnd.oasis.universalbusinesslanguage is too verbose, and .ubl will suffice, but I don't think there is a limit on the length of a MIME type, and it would always be machine generated so there is no real scope for it being miss-spelt.

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Chet Ensign

Chief Technical Community Steward

OASIS Open

+1 201-341-1393

chet.ensign@oasis-open.org

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Chet Ensign