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

Ned Freed (NED@SIGURD.INNOSOFT.COM)
Sat, 13 May 95 21:46:45 EDT

> > The problem is that some people don't agree that its the same
> > character. They believe that the language the character is associated
> > with is part of the character that has to be preserved. According
> > this logic you can talk about mapping from ISO-2022-JP to something
> > you might call ISO-10646-JP, but that you cannot map to generic
> > ISO-10646, and that therefore ISO-2022-JP is NOT a subset of
> > ISO-10646. (Some have even go so far as to assert that ISO-10646 does
> > not meet the requirements of being a character set.)

> At least here in Japan, the number of such people are dwindling
> (though still significant).

And it is exactly this "significant" number that I worry about. This isn't the
ISO or ANSI. This is the IETF, and the IETF doesn't operate on the basis of
opinions of acknowledged experts or on the basis of appointed representatives.
It operates on the basis of getting an informed consensus from its individual
members, and anyone is entitled to participate, regardless of their level
of expertise.

I now realize that I made a mistake in including a disclaimer as to my
non-expert status. I included that disclaimer not to discount the value of my
statements in any way, but instead to avoid trouble if I misrepresented the
statements of others who participated in the MIME development process because
of my lack of understanding of their arguments.

We have a big problem if this "significant" number of people that Gavin agrees
exist decide to object to the present wording. And counterarguments in
the past from experts have proven to be totally ineffective.

Now, it is also quite possible that I'm making something out of nothing, and
the present wording will move through the process without a word of dissent
from anyone. But I doubt it will, and since the present wording apparently
isn't anything that SGML usage requires, why bother to retain it?

> When I talk about such things, people immediately ask "but what about
> the CJK problems?", and once I explain things to them, 99% say "Oh. I
> see, no problem".

Agreed -- most people see things this way.

> Most people don't have a problem, so long as they are not forced to
> loose any functionlity they currently have. For others, well... there's
> no hope, because their logic stems from a belief, rather than vice
> versa.

Exactly right. Regardless of whether or not the position is actual position is
logical, it isn't being argued on a logical basis, which makes it quite
difficult to refute.

Ned