Re: Revised language on: ISO/IEC 10646 as Document Character Set

Ned Freed (NED@SIGURD.INNOSOFT.COM)
Tue, 9 May 95 18:59:10 EDT

> > OK. So I'm saying it has been put somewhere. Does this address
> > your concern, or would you like to suggest something more?

> Perhaps it would be clearer if we had some wording in there that
> explained the relationship between "charset" and "document character
> set"?

I believe the "Character Sets Considered Harmful" document is intended to
address this issue (as well as some other issues). Now, as to whether or not
this material needs to be "closer" to the HTML specification, I couldn't say
for sure. Personally, I'm happy with it being where it is now, but I could
be convinced that it needs to move.

> Actually, it's not that *I* want to use chars not in 10646. My concern
> is that the HTML spec should not attempt to restrict people from using
> charsets that *they think* (this is key) are "richer" than 10646.
> What's the point of restricting the charset to subsets of 10646?

I agree that this is a key issue. You've already lost the battle if you let the
question of whether or not character sets exist that are "richer" than 10646
even get asked. The MIME work provided ample evidence that this is a highly
political question, so much so that different groups will give different
answers and nothing will ever persuade them to change their position. (Note
that I have intentionally not said what my position on this is!)

> MIME is in many ways just a framework. One of the WG's decisions was
> not to restrict the charset -- instead, people would be allowed to
> register charsets. I think HMTL should similarly avoid restricting
> the charset.

I completely agree. Also note that the character set registration procedure has
(finally) been formalized to the point where the process may actually work
pretty well -- I just posted a new version of MIME part four (registration
procedures) to Internet Drafts that covers all of this.

Ned