Now, some folks in the Japan industry would do the same re: 10646. On
the other hand, ITSCJ (Industry Technology Standards Commission of Japan)
-- the folks that produce JIS standards -- have nearly completed a new
JIS standard JIS X 0221 which, guess what, is identical to 10646. Further,
JIS has made statements to the effect that they will base future JIS
standards on this new Japanese national form of 10646.
A few noises from certain quarters shouldn't make people think for a
moment that 10646 will fail to become the only serious universal character
set standard which has broad international support (including the support
of an overwhelming majority of all ISO P-members).
No matter what one's definition of "richness" is, the fact remains that
10646 encodes 34,168 characters. On the other hand, all of the JIS
standards together (JIS X 0201, JIS X 0208, and JIS X 0212) only amount
to approx. 12,000 characters -- all of which are present as distinct
characters in 10646. By any reasonable definition I can imagine,
that makes 10646 about three times as rich as EUC-J and ISO 2022 JP.
What's so political about these facts?
Regards,
Glenn Adams