Internet Draft
draft-miller-media-type-cellml-01.txt

Intended Status:
Network Working Group                                       A. K. Miller
Request for Comments: nnnn                    The University of Auckland
Standards Track                                               March 2006

                           CellML Media Type

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Copyright Notice

    Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

    This document standardises two new media types --
    application/cellml-1.0+xml and application/cellml-1.1+xml -- for
    use in exchanging mathematical models represented in the CellML
    markup language.

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1. Introduction

    CellML is a standardised markup language for the interchange of
    mathematical models. The syntax and semantics of CellML are defined
    by [CELLML-1.0] and [CELLML-1.1]. To enable the exchange of CellML
    documents, this document standardises two new media types --
    application/cellml-1.0+xml and application/cellml-1.1+xml -- for
    use in exchanging mathematical models represented in the CellML
    markup language.

2. Notational Conventions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

   The terms "element" and "document element" in this document are to be
   interpreted as in [XML].

   The term "component" in this document is to be interpreted as in
   [CELLML-1.0].

   The term "XML MIME entity" is to be interpreted as in [RFC3023].

   The term "XML namespace" is to be interpreted as in [NAMESPACES].

3. Discussion

    CellML is an XML-based markup language for the interchange of
    mathmatical models. It is defined by [CELLML-1.0] and was
    improved by [CELLML-1.1].

    CellML is an actual media format. Although CellML documents contain
    elements defined by [MATHML] and [RDF], the information in these
    namespaces do not contain sufficient information to define a
    mathematical model, and so CellML provides the information required
    to interconnect the different CellML components, as well as the
    information required to link CellML components to their metadata.
    As such, CellML documents are more than just a collection of MathML
    or RDF entities, and so a new media type is required to identify
    CellML.

    As all well-formed CellML documents are also well-formed XML
    documents, the convention described in Section 7 of [RFC3023] has
    been observed by use of the +xml suffix.

    The information in CellML documents cannot be interpreted without
    understanding the semantics of the XML elements used to mark up the
    model structure. Therefore, the application top-level type is used
    instead of the text top-level type.

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4. Media Type Registrations
4.1 Media Type Registration for CellML 1.0

    MIME media type name: application

    MIME subtype name: cellml-1.0+xml

    Mandatory parameters: none

    Optional parameters: charset

      The charset parameter of application/cellml-1.0+xml is handled in
      the same fashion as for application/xml, as specified in Section
      3.2 of [RFC3023].

    Encoding considerations: As per Section 3.2 of [RFC3023].

    Security considerations: As per Section 6 of this document.

    Interoperability considerations: As per Section 5.1 of this
      document.

    Published specification: CellML 1.0 Specification[CELLML-1.0].

    Applications which use this media type: As per Section 5.2 of this
      document.

    Additional information:

      Magic number(s): None.
        XML processing software may identify CellML 1.0 documents as XML
        documents which contain a document element with local name
        "model" and a namespace URI beginning with
        "http://www.cellml.org/cellml/1.0#".

      File extension(s):
        The recommended file extension for CellML documents is .xml

        Some older CellML processing software still uses the obsolete
        file extension .cml

      Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"

      Person & email address to contact for further information:
        See the Author's Address section of this document.

      Intended usage: COMMON

      Author/Change controller: The CellML 1.0 specification was
        authored through the collaboration of a number of individuals.

        The CellML 1.0 specification has been frozen, and so will not
        change. CellML specifications in general are controlled by the

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        Bioengineering Institute at The University of Auckland, with
        input from the CellML Community via the
        cellml-discussion@cellml.org mailing list. New versions of the
        CellML specification will either be backwards compatible, or
        will use a different MIME type.

4.2 Media Type Registration for CellML 1.1

    MIME media type name: application

    MIME subtype name: cellml-1.1+xml

    Mandatory parameters: none

    Optional parameters: charset

      The charset parameter of application/cellml-1.1+xml is handled in
      the same fashion as for application/xml, as specified in Section
      3.2 of [RFC3023].

    Encoding considerations: As per Section 3.2 of [RFC3023].

    Security considerations: As per Section 6 of this document.

    Interoperability considerations: As per Section 5.1 of this
      document.

    Published specification: CellML 1.1 Specification[CELLML-1.1].

    Applications which use this media type: As per Section 5.2 of this
      document.

    Additional information:

      Magic number(s): None.
        XML processing software may identify CellML 1.0 documents as XML
        documents which contain a document element with local name
        "model" and a namespace URI beginning with
        "http://www.cellml.org/cellml/1.1#".

      File extension(s):
        The recommended file extension for CellML documents is .xml

        Some older CellML processing software still uses the obsolete
        file extension .cml

      Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"

      Person & email address to contact for further information:
        See the Author's Address section of this document.

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      Intended usage: COMMON

      Author/Change controller: The CellML 1.1 specification was
        authored through the collaboration of a number of individuals.

        The CellML 1.1 specification has been frozen, and so will not
        change. CellML specifications in general are controlled by the
        Bioengineering Institute at The University of Auckland, with
        input from the CellML Community via the
        cellml-discussion@cellml.org mailing list. New versions of the
        CellML specification will either be backwards compatible, or
        will use a different MIME type.

5. Interoperability and usage
5.1. Interoperability Considerations
    The interoperability considerations in Section 3.1 of [RFC3023]
    also apply to CellML documents. CellML documents contain XML
    elements defined by [CELLML], [MATHML], and [RDF], all of which are
    published specifications. In addition to the ability to parse XML,
    user agents require software support for the semantics of one or
    more of these three specifications to use the information in CellML
    documents.

5.2. Applications which use CellML
    CellML is device-, platform-, and vendor-neutral and is supported
    by a wide range of CellML processing tools, including those
    designed to validate, edit, and/or visualise CellML models, extract
    MathML or RDF, translate to or from other related specifications,
    evaluate mathematics and ordinary differential equations, and fit
    parameters to models.

6. Security Considerations

    As CellML is an XML based markup language, all the security
    considerations presented in section 10 of [RFC3023] also apply to
    CellML.

    CellML documents can refer to other Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
    in a number of places:
      i)   References to XML document type definitions or schemas.
      ii)  References to other models using the CellML import feature.
      iii) References to other documents embedded in user-defined data.

    Some types of CellML processing software may then automatically
    attempt to access the URL and retrieve the document. This retrieval
    could have several consequences, specifically,
      i)   if a CellML document is transferred via e-mail, the fact that
           the recipient has opened the CellML document could be
           disclosed to the sender without the recipient's knowledge or
           consent.

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      ii)  where the recipient of a document transfers the document to
           another location using the MIME type defined in this
           document, the original author of the document may be notified
           of the second address by the attempted retrieval of further
           documents.
      iii) by performing requests on the recipient's behalf, the CellML
           processing software may cause actions to be performed with
           privileges granted to the recipient, without the recipient's
           knowledge or consent.

    CellML processing software can mitigate this threat when running in
    an environment where it is a concern by requiring explicit
    confirmation from the user before attempting to load any external
    documents.

7. IANA Considerations

    This document specifies a new media type. IANA will add this media
    type to the media types registry as specified in [RFC4288].

8. References
8.1. Normative References

    [CELLML1.0]      Hedley, et. al. "CellML 1.0 Specification",
                       10 August 2001,
                     <http://www.cellml.org/specifications/cellml_1.1>

    [CELLML1.1]      Cuellar, et. al. "CellML 1.1 Specification",
                       6 November 2002,
                     <http://www.cellml.org/specifications/cellml_1.1>

    [NAMESPACES]     Bray, T., et. al., "Namespaces in XML 1.1",
                     4 February 2004, <http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-names11>

    [RFC2119]        Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
                     Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, BCP 14, March 1997

    [RFC3023]        Murata, M., Simon, S.L., Kohn, D., "XML Media
                     Types", RFC 3023, January 2001

    [XML]            Bray, T., et. al., "Extensible Markup Language
                     (XML) 1.0 (Third Edition)", 4 February 2004,
                     <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/>

8.2. Informative References
    [MATHML]         Ion, P. and Miner, R.(editors) "Mathematical Markup
                     Language (MathML) 1.01 Specification", 7 July 1999,
                     <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-MathML/>

    [RDF]            Beckett, D.(editor) "RDF/XML Syntax Specification
                     (Revised)", 10 February 2004,
                     <http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/>

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    [RFC2616]        Fielding, R.T., et. al., "Hypertext Transfer
                     Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999

    [RFC4288]        Freed, N. and Klensin, J.C., "Media Type
                     Specifications and Registration Procedures",
                     RFC 4288, BCP 13, December 2005

Author's Address

    Andrew Miller
    The Bioengineering Institute at The University of Auckland
    Level 6, 70 Symonds St
    Auckland Central
    Auckland

    E-mail: ak.miller@auckland.ac.nz

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