Message-Id: <6.1.2.0.2.20050328122657.037aa150@mail.jefsey.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 13:07:02 +0200
To: Frank Ellermann <nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de>
From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@jefsey.com>
Subject: Re: [Ltru] Re: XML registries now available
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On 00:14 28/03/2005, Frank Ellermann said:
>McDonald, Ira wrote:
>
> > No software should EVER download the registry from IANA in
> > a running device - this is a denial-of-service nightmare.
> > Software that downloaded newer language tags wouldn't know
> > what to do with them anyway.
>
>What I had in mind was the configuration of "accept-languages"
>with my browser:  It came with a huge list of choices, and it
>offered to add other values manually.  The relevant part for
>"small devices" is the "huge list" - not dowloaded from IANA
>for each device, built-in, but you'd need that ROM.  No idea
>how it's today, but a decade ago EPROM / EEPROM / etc. were
>quite expensive in relation to the complete costs.  Bye, Frank

Frank,
this reasoning is the same as for DNS. First they started with Hosts.txt 
[an IP address/name table] everyone had to maintain on their computer. Then 
the update went too heavy (actually this is not the updating, but the check 
if there is something to be updated). The DNS permitted only the necessary 
data to be inquired and updated. A good entry is cached until it is wrong.

This experience is good for us with some considerations:

1. PADs (private alias directories) will soon emerge as IPv6 and 
Multilingualism develop, IETF and ICANN do not want/are unable to address. 
A PAD can be a list of IP address and names in English in a Hosts.eng file 
and the same list with names in Breton in file Hosts.bre. To change your 
computer from an English Internet box to a Breton one you just copy 
Hosts.bre into Hosts.txt and can use Breton URLs all right.

2. The way ICANN and IETF consider the root is obviously a joke - the 
entire world real time relying religiously on a file IANA takes up to years 
to update from public data, to the point to two computers in the same room 
cannot dialog together if they lose connectivity to the root system for 
longer than a TTL - but in the langtags we can decide :

1) TTL (time to live) for the langtag to be kept in "cache" - in the 
langtags.txt file on your computer - is the current year + a random 0/365 
value. This means that when your entry is older than maximum 729 days you 
should update your langtags.txt file (the random figure to avoid everyone 
call the IANA or mirrors the same day).

2) the structure of expired code is entered in the langtags.txt file as 
code + current year plus description. When it is reassigned description 
change and a new code+year is entered. So if the obsolescence cycle of a 
code is 20 years, another is 10 years, another 50 years, you do not mind. I 
you know the date of the file the langtag comes from you perfectly know 
what it relates to.

In the case of small devices, like a multilingual translator, etc. you just 
copy the langtags.txt file on a flash memory as you suggest.

Obviously when I talk of langtags.txt this is a generic name you can 
decline in using ISO 639 code to have them in every language you want, 
langtags.eng, langtags.bre etc....

jfc


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