In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

The only entity that "broke" the
standard was the one that didn't conform to it in the first place (e.g. the
web developer, web site, web server, etc.)

Well, at least we agree that something on the server side is the root
cause of the problem here.

It doesn't "break" a standard to play a file even when the standard doesn't
provide sufficient information to play it.

A straw man (or perhaps it's a non-sequitur). The standard does provide
enough information. What is happening here is that the server is lying
about what kind of file it is serving.

All the media player does is to try to make an educated guess as to what was
actually intended

No, the media player is doing more than that. The media player is
*ignoring* the content-type information sent by the server.

Here's an aviation analogy: imagine that you had a magic gadget that
could convert Jet-A to 100LL. You install one of these on your
piston-powered airplane. Now when you fill up you can take either Jet-A
or 100LL. You no longer care. One day you get to an airport where the
pump marked 100LL is in fact dispensing Jet-A. From your point of view
this is not a problem. But from everyone else's point of view it is.

So... should everyone have to install one of these magic gadgets on
their planes? Or are the people without the gadget right to insist that
the fuel pumps ought to be marked correctly?

That is an exact analogy to the current situation.

rg