Allowed characters (was: Re: Casefolding Sigma (was: Re: IDNAbis Preprocessing Draft)

[Paul Hoffman]

At 12:21 AM +0400 3/31/08, Michael Everson wrote:
>At 13:06 -0700 2008-03-30, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>>Off-list, but keeping Patrik on the Cc:
>
>No. No, and no. I am not going to respect this off-list. I *am not* 
>a member of the UTC. I am Irish National Body representative to 
>ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, and I *work* with my colleagues in the UTC. 
>Sometimes we work together. Sometimes we work with opposing 
>viewpoints. But we work openly. I am a guest here on 
>idna-update at alvestrand.no and I do my best to contribute positively. 
>Your answering me privately (and in the way you did so) I consider 
>an affront to my Unicode colleagues, and I believe they have the 
>right to know what you have said. So, in good faith and to honour 
>our collective endeavour, I am bouncing this back to the list.

This is absurd. I took this off-list so that you did not feel 
obligated to giving an on-list response to an on-list question. The 
question I asked, why you think that everyone active on the IDNA200x 
protocol should have to follow the TUC versions, could have many 
answers that I have not thought of. None of your Unicode colleagues 
have said anything similar to what you have, so I wanted to give you 
the best way to answer.

>>At 11:27 PM +0400 3/30/08, Michael Everson wrote:
>>>>I haven't followed the beta process for 5.1 very carefully,
>>>
>>>You ought to. It is in YOUR interests and in the interests of YOUR 
>>>constituents to do so.
>>
>>Why?
>
>Evidently because you are responsible to your constituents?

My responsibility to my constituents is to create a protocol that 
works. The current proposal is a protocol that works without the IETF 
community needing to follow the Unicode versioning. If we have to 
carefully follow Unicode versioning, than the design of the new 
protocol is a failure. Fortunately, I don't think it has been shown 
to be a failure yet.

>>We know that IDNA200x will come out after 5.1, and maybe even 5.2 
>>or 6.0 or whatever.
>
>And 6.3 and 7.2 and 9.0. And you should give a damn. If you can't 
>see why, you should wonder why you are in this business. The 
>Universal Character Set will, should we all not drown in global 
>deluge or fail to the next pandemic, record the entire history of 
>our species. Pay attention. This activity is worthwhile, and worth 
>doing properly.

If you believe that having lots more contributors to the Unicode 
character set will inherently help it, that's fine. Having watched 
the process for over five years, and seeing how little I as a speaker 
of only English could contribute, I respectfully disagree. TUC seems 
to do fine with active members who know a heck of a lot more than I 
do. My contributions were meager at best.

>>>So my opinion is not a Unicode opinion. (Though I suspect they 
>>>hold the same view. You OUGHT to follow these processes carefully.)
>>
>>If we are successful, I think we shouldn't have to.
>
>May I suggest that you take your head out of the sand?

Thank you for asking, but I have no way of preventing you, clearly.

>You are part of a community. That community is wider, and MUCH MUCH 
>MORE IMPORTANT than IETF and its bizarre and dysfunctional 
>procedures and its 
>I-don't-have-to-care-about-the-world-outside-my-parents'-basement 
>self-importance.

SDOs are lots of pots and kettles, all black.

>>My "why?" above is a serious question. What can TUC do that would 
>>cause us to need to track their versions?
>
>People are people. People err. Your belief that you can do this work 
>without care to its content is an example of such fallibility.

If you are saying that the IDNA200x model of Unicode version 
independence is doomed to failure without more IETFers following the 
Unicode efforts, that's fine. That doesn't mean that having more 
people following the Unicode effort will help: there is already a lot 
of cross-pollination by experts from both sides.

>Off the high horse. Out of the white castle. People who work in WG2 
>and people who work in the UTC are your colleagues, and you owe them 
>more respect than you have shown today.

Bosh. I have the deepest respect for them (even you!) and their 
understanding of human languages, and I have said that to some of 
them in person over the past decade. Your imputing that I didn't 
respect them because I tried to give you an easier forum to explain 
yourself is a wild stretch of your imagination.