Tables: BackwardCompatible Maintanence

[Patrik Fältström]

I am still missing input from wg participants on this very large change.

The problem for me is that I have problems saying exactly to IANA what  
they should do. I do, as I said last time in Minneapolis, that I am  
extremely nervous over changes like these. When is IANA to add things,  
and how? Do we really know IANA should add every difference to the  
backward compatibility list? I have seen enough discussions that say  
"some changes should be possible to make".

Overall, there is a reason Unicode Consortium is making a very very  
rare change that create a non-backward compatible change for IDNA. I  
am personally very nervous telling IANA that the backward compatible  
list is absolute. I really want IETF process to have a look at that  
very rare change and decide what should be done. Either add to  
backward compatibility list, or do something else. Maybe change from  
PVALID to CONTEXT.

But, as editor, the problem I have is that I see Mark's suggestion,  
and I hear my own personal argument against Marks suggestion. Then  
support from Ken saying he does not see any problem with Mark's  
suggestion.

As Editor, I would like to get more input.

And as individual, I once again say that the rules are very easy to  
relax later on, but not the other way around.

    Patrik

On 5 dec 2008, at 22.50, Mark Davis wrote:

> Patrick asked about consensus for this item. I don't want it to fall  
> through
> the cracks, so would anyone object to a change?
> Mark
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 08:17, Mark Davis <mark at macchiato.com> wrote:
>
>> BackwardCompatible Maintanence Changes to BackwardCompatible are a
>> completely different beast than adjustments to PVALID and  
>> DISALLOWED. The
>> latter we can hope to never happen. But changes to BackwardCompatible
>> MUST be done to preserve backwards compatibility, it is not an  
>> option! And
>> we know that there is a non-zero likelyhood that this will happen  
>> with each
>> Unicode version (every year or so). The BackwardCompatible list,  
>> like the
>> Context Rules Registry, should be under the aegis of IANA, with  
>> precise and
>> strict instructions to add exactly (all and only) those characters  
>> necessary
>> to preserve backwards compatibility with each new version of  
>> Unicode. This
>> is not a new concept: BCP 47 (RFC 4646) has a section describing  
>> exactly
>> what to do with each new version of a source ISO standard. The  
>> textual
>> changes to do this are small, and I can supply suggested text.
>> *Minor*
>>
>> This document uses different reference names for the same  
>> documents, eg
>> [TR15]. All of the IDNA2008 documents should use the same notation  
>> for
>> common references.
>>
>> Mark
>>
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