Message-Id: <6.2.1.2.2.20050809104838.04ae66a0@mail.afrac.org>
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 15:05:06 +0200
To: Frank Ellermann <nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de>, ltru@ietf.org
From: r&d afrac <rd@afrac.org>
Subject: Re: [Ltru] singleton DIGIT (was: W3C tag policy disclaimers
	and IETF RFCs)
In-Reply-To: <42F846F5.7121@xyzzy.claranet.de>
References: <001401c59c99$86292560$030aa8c0@DEWELL>
	<42F846F5.7121@xyzzy.claranet.de>
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Structural comment below. For Members' coporate people.

At 08:02 09/08/2005, Frank Ellermann wrote:
>Doug Ewell wrote:
>
> >> Fair enough, 3066bis doesn't allow a digit as singleton
> > Yes it does:
> > singleton     =3D %x41-57 / %x59-5A / %x61-77 / %x79-7A / DIGIT
>
>Sigh, and I thought that I know the ABNF by heart.  So far for
>that idea.  Jefsey has to pick another "escape" character for
>his "not-3066bis-scheme".  Maybe "!" or "$".
>
> > left over from the days before the ABNF was expanded to allow
> > digits (I forget when this was).
>
>Added in -01, in -00 it was still without DIGIT.  No idea what
>the old pre-LTRU drafts did, I don't find them anymore on
>Addison's pages.
>
> > Judging from all the attention this ABNF has gotten, I'd say
> > the correct move is to trust the ABNF over the prose.
>
>Yes, although I must admit that I don't recall _why_ DIGIT was
>added.  John proposed to sort extensions alphabetically, and
>IIRC we discussed to exclude "y" and "z" - both ideas were
>rejected.  I wanted "x" instead of "x" / "X" because in ABNF
>"x" is already case insensitive, also rejected, and that's all
>I can say without digging through the archive.

Dear Frank,
RFC 3066 permitted digits in subtags. What Doug says is "I cannot support=
=20
it in the document I write since I did not write that I would". This kind=
=20
of position will obviously not hold for ever in front of IESG, IAB, GAC,=20
WTO, but if can confuse people enough to hold for years. This is why I am=
=20
spending so much time explaining the obvious again and again. To give=20
"lawyers" quotes enough to discuss the bad or the good faith of the autho=
rs.

ABNF is not the point. You may note that only you and Lee, who are=20
motivated in finding a technical solution, in an IETF fashion, are=20
seriously following this technical thread. The point is political and=20
commercial.

Why? And is it bad or not?


Just try to figure out who are the customers here. Who has money in=20
language related industries? Who print, sell and buy books? Typographers,=
=20
Publishers and Libraries. What is their common target? To sell/rent books=
=20
to readers. Who are the readers? More and more Internet users. The=20
customers of the book industries evade books. Two things to do: cheaper=20
books and to move the book industry into the internet (and in so doing tr=
y=20
to protect the existing market repartition and to invade the share of the=
=20
slow movers) with the minimum of compromise with the natives (Yahoo!,=20
Google, etc.)

Study http://www.unicode.org/history/boardmembers.html and=20
http://www.unicode.org/consortium/directors.html. Unicode is certainly th=
e=20
most active and talented (*) place where this concerns can be discussed a=
nd=20
acted upon. It certainly gathers representatives from the market and=20
customer leaders. It is likely that its propositions carry enormous weigh=
t,=20
but also call for serious political attention. This attention is from the=
=20
competition and the partners of its Directors and Executives corporations=
,=20
from cultural authorities. It is from Governments, due to this weight and=
=20
the possible direct or indirect impact on the most sensitive human areas:=
=20
culture, civilisation memory, political influence, religion, human=20
relations, etc. You may have noted the force and the speed of the Europea=
n=20
reactions to the Google digital library announcement.

(*) Some individual members are: Harald Alvestrand, John Cowan, Martin=20
D=FCrst, Doug Ewell, Jean-Fran=E7ois Morfin; some corporate Members (whos=
e=20
employees also form the broad majority of the consortium directors and=20
executives) are: RLG (whose BoD Member is the only one to stay from the=20
very beginning), Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Cisco. Verisign just joined as a=20
Member.

What is the target of the people gathered in Unicode? "The Unicode=20
Consortium is a non-profit organisation founded to develop, extend and=20
promote use of the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation o=
f=20
text in modern software products and standards." Unicode is therefore an=20
active participant to the W3C (web standards) and to ISO (international=20
standards).


Now, read http://ietf.org/overview.html. It starts saying "The Internet=20
Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of=20
network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the=
=20
evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the=20
Internet."

The first problem is here. Unicode (Mark Davis' culture) is about=20
characters in texts and W3C (Addison Philips' cultures) is about Web=20
i.e.  modern software to print/display/speak texts. But IETF is about=20
Internet architecture and the Draft does not bridge the huge gap between=20
one of the network application, however big it is and however historicall=
y=20
rooted it is, and the network architecture. The only way they have to kee=
p=20
them together is to "constrain" the network into their typographer/printe=
r=20
culture. This obviously cannot work. Typographer, printer and bookstores=20
chains are different trades.


The second problem is that the customers needs are outdated and the book=20
industry does not know how to match our time's challenge. People like Pet=
er=20
Constable and me certainly try to help in our own ways - him as an=20
employee, me as an applied searcher. This is the very same problem as=20
Telcos and music publishers. Book publishers and Libraries have been=20
impacted more slowly and for a longer time than Music publishers and Medi=
a,=20
but the problem is similar. Music publishers introduced RPM, iPod, etc.=20
Book Publishers and Libraries introduce RFIDs and langtags.

Is that a bad idea? No.

It even looks very promising both for Libraries and Publishers, and for=20
software and service providers. A unique basis to build good organisation=
=20
and market protection control. Every text can be tagged with a langtag; w=
e=20
will find them everywhere (RFID on the books in bookstores, Libraries,=20
Colleges, etc. Operating System locales - Windows and Linux alike) with a=
n=20
easy to add ISSN when printed. The catalogues, management, organisation=20
savings can be huge for publishers, libraries etc. This is very urgent=20
while the printer increasingly challenges the book. The need is to level=20
the practical cost of satisfaction of a book and of a printout; and to ge=
t=20
the copyrights paid in both cases. Same problem as Sony and Napster. The=20
solution is like iPod: the library of Congress on an USB iLib, which can=20
plug on any bookprinter to come, and stay compatible whatever the version=
=20
of text over the centuries.

At the same time, the langtags makes it easier to rush down the web,=20
reading every web page, sorting them by langtags, reading them for=20
incorrect words, copyright infringement, etc. and printing the daily=20
police/lawyer report for copyright actions.

I obviously only give rough lines and do not go into the details of the w=
ay=20
it helps reducing costs, improving quality, increasing security etc.=20
through system convergence, simplification, etc.


So, you understand why this Jefsey is a very bad/poor stupid troll, makin=
g=20
"industry" to waste huge amounts of money with his "delaying practices".

You also understand that if his "0-" were to be accepted the whole scheme=
=20
would be useless. The whole thing is format exclusiveness, so _every_ boo=
k=20
and page in the world can fit in a unique industry controlled format.

Every other attempt MUST be excluded. And here is the huge "but". Because=
=20
it scale and stay.

The supposed retrocompatibility obligation with a never used format is on=
ly=20
a bluff. This is probably one of the reasons why the WG-ltru never wanted=
=20
to consider its Charter. The Charter says something quite different: "It =
is=20
expected to specify a mechanism for easily identifying the role of each=20
subtag in the language tag, so that, for example, whenever a script code =
or=20
country code is present in the tag it can be extracted, even without acce=
ss=20
to a current version of the registry. Such a mechanism would clearly=20
distinguish between well-formed and valid language tags, to allow for=20
maximal compatibility between implementations released at different times=
,=20
and thus using different versions of the registry."

Jefsey is also quite worrying. Because he works on the matter for 30 year=
s=20
(among other things, I came to networking in 1976 in discussing with Xero=
x,=20
Compugraphic, etc. about an international network to print books. I studi=
ed=20
in 1979 with all the large newspapers not printing photos - Le Monde, la=20
Stampa, Die Welt, etc. - simultaneous locale editions over the=20
international public network. I managed my own daily economical newsfaxer=
=20
during five years, with editions on Minitel, professional papers, etc.). =
He=20
knows networks (I am first a Navy communication officer dealing with secu=
re=20
world networks since 1971). He possibly has the technical user-centric=20
architecture to change all that (I do). He knows the future; and the futu=
re=20
he knows is probably quite different from the past the industry wants to=20
protect (it extends it, it does not kill it). No way to permit his ideas=20
and demands through. He must be excluded. Whatever the way (including=20
anonymous telephone threads, what next?).

Another problem with Jefsey: he is no English mother-tongue. So he knows=20
more and he is engaged into structures, solutions, propositions that do n=
ot=20
want to use English as the language of reference. This is quite worrying=20
for several reasons.

- One reason is that industry is mainly US driven and has no collective=20
knowledge, experience and practice of languages at this level.=20
Multilingualism is a difficult and complex area. Stakeholders prefer to=20
address it as an internationalisation+localisation=20
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-itsreq-20050805  which permits them (they=20
think, but this is one of the main technical error by lack of complete=20
analysis and modelisation) to simplify the issue and to control it from t=
he=20
computer root (via CLDR: the control of locale files).

- Another reason is that the industry is also conducted by market leaders=
=20
which happen to be Americans and therefore to benefit from the American=20
commercial environment, and which are under European scrutiny for possibl=
e=20
market dominant position.

- Multilingualism is also a threat of balkanisation of the network which=20
would kill the acquired vision of the network and would remove the partia=
l=20
protection provided by "an American built Internet" Hollywood story (Jefs=
ey=20
knows the truth: danger). You can sue a Chinese in the US for having=20
violated a copyright on the Internet. This is more difficult if the=20
violation was on the "Chinese Internet", with Chinese domain names. The l=
aw=20
will be the same, the eventual decision will be the same, but the cost=20
balance will switch: it will be cheaper to the Chinese user,  and more=20
expansive to the multinational stakeholder.

Another problem with Jefsey is that he only considers the "Web" as one=20
application on the network and not as the main system. The langtags MUST =
be=20
the internal core of the Internet system to be on every text. Or the sche=
me=20
will never be powerfull enough to work.

There are obviously many other problems with Jefsey. I just wanted to quo=
te=20
some. A last worrying one: he is impressed by technical pertinence and=20
vision, not by corporate positions.


Now, I explained the why, may be interesting to discuss the bad/good issu=
e.

As often in period of dramatic industrial changes, industries fight for=20
survival in making incorrect short-sighted choices based upon immediate=20
self-protection (innovative quick consensus is quite unusual). The way to=
=20
best help them is to accompany their change, in first trying to understan=
d=20
its reasons. Often, as in this case, the change proceed in several phases=
=20
due to the hysteresis of the interaction with technology and users: timin=
g=20
is important. In fighting my graduated propositions to carefully move fro=
m=20
one step to an other, the Draft affinity group actually represents a huge=
=20
danger for the industry it wants to protect. They waste time and modern=20
solutions in fighting the last war. One can easily see that by the lack o=
f=20
definition of the terms they use: it would show they confuse the contexts=
.=20
As a consequence their  resulting proposition will not be acceptable to=20
their competition, to their market partners, to governments etc. and is o=
f=20
no real interest to their "end-users" (an old notion they have not yet=20
departed from).

It is not far. But it is not acceptable. A simple explanation is that the=
y=20
start from where they come from (typographers) instead of considering whe=
re=20
they want to arrive (distributed networks). Also, that they have a wrong=20
economical model. Their model is to reduce costs through simplification,=20
what means rigidity. This could work if the market was dwindling. But the=
=20
market is exploding. But not exploding in the way they see it=20
(publishing/rending stocked books), but in the way the users see it=20
(multimedia access to knowledge). Scalability and simplicity are confused=
=20
with limitation: they do not mean less options; they mean an infinite=20
number of easy to get options and only a few built-in defaults.

I must say they are not helped by the current status of the world thinkin=
g.=20
The WSIS is a major misconception for them. "Information" is currently=20
understood as a mix between technical data and French 1960 "informatique"=
.=20
The WSIS was initially a first attempt by librarians to address their=20
problem. It went out of their control. For the same reason why langtags a=
re=20
to escape them. The problem is new, complex and a past protection approac=
h=20
can only be increasingly inadequate. What they need is a solid, open,=20
stable, innovative and secure generalised network framework, where they c=
an=20
lodge their own solutions. Unfortunately the Internet does not fully=20
deliver it, yet. This is why before addressing the book industry needs th=
e=20
International Network system must first become a Multilingual Global NGN.=
=20
The advantage of Majors over Unicode is that Music is a unique universal=20
languages. But pictures are multilingual - with a larger possible diversi=
ty=20
of languages than texts. MPEG should be included in the analysis.


The solution IMHO is to proceed step by step. Considering immediate=20
interests, ending with exclusion but carefully discussing timing,=20
experimentation and deployment areas. Until one can agree on a future=20
economical model. We can discuss that too.

It will necessarily include the convergence of various forms of=20
data-providers (search engines, domain names, libraries, mail, etc.), of=20
content structures (architexts, multimedia, services), storing=20
(memorisation technologies are a key issue), o payment means (probably a=20
secure micro payment support). etc. Then the common standard MUST address=
=20
the need of EVERYONE. Because it is legal, the IETF objective, but most o=
f=20
all because it is business efficient in a network.

And, what if Jefsey finds a trick to proceed otherwise?
Take care.
jfc




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