Unicode versions (Re: Criteria for exceptional characters)

Mark Davis mark.davis at icu-project.org
Mon Dec 18 17:50:02 CET 2006


On 12/17/06, Harald Alvestrand <harald at alvestrand.no> wrote:
>
>
>
> --On 17. desember 2006 00:37 +0000 Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com>
> wrote:
>
> > At 15:58 -0800 2006-12-16, Mark Davis wrote:
> >
> >> The major problems I see with the current system* are:
> >>
> >> 1. It does not allow Unicode 5.0 characters.
> >
> > To be honest, we MUST refer to Unicode 5.1. Of course, all characters in
> > Unicode 5.0 are important, but if Unicode 5.1 is not taken as the
> > benchmark, the Myanmar (Burmese) script will be left out, and that is
> > simply not something that can be countenanced.
> >
>
> This comment illustrates that the "major problem" as stated by Mark needs
> a
> restatement.
> My suggestion would be:
>
> 1. It is bound to a specific version of Unicode, and therefore does not
> allow the adoption of new scripts over time.


I think that's a reasonable restatement.

If that is accepted as the problem definition, it is reasonable to assume
> that a solution does NOT lock us again into a fixed set of scripts, but
> rather allows scripts to be added in an incremental fashion.
> And if that is accepted, the option of disallowing a script "until we have
> sorted out the identified issues" becomes far less of an issue than it
> seems to be regarded by Mark/Ken/Michel today
> (apologies if I have mischaracterized a position here).



I think the "until we have sorted out the identified issues" is too vague to
be a useful criterion. There is general consensus that there isn't any
problem with leaving out the historic scripts (although, as I said, frankly
it doesn't buy much in terms of reducing spoofing). But which other scripts
did you have in mind omitting, and on what grounds?

There is also a big difference between the flexibility in the protocol vs
that available to registries and user-agents. Suppose that in the protocol
we allow Hebrew, but recommend against (for some reason) final forms of
letters. Registries and user-agents can then start by following those
recommendations, but if it turns out to be necessary to allow them in
(either fully or in limited circumstances), it is relatively easy for them
to do so. Baking a prohibition against final-forms of letters into the
protocol is a much different matter -- it takes quite a while for everyone
to update to a new version. (And during that time, I have no doubt that we
will hear charges of discrimination...)


I think.



Since you didn't comment on any of the other issues I wrote, does that mean
that you agree with them, or that you just hadn't gotten to them. ;-)

                     Harald
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