Stability in standards

[Michael Everson]

The 3166 MA has answered:

>The change was permitted because the government of Romania urgently
>requested it. The Romanian Government wanted to see their country identified
>not by ROM but ROU on the new passports they are issuing and which are in
>line with certain EU and ICAO regulations.
>
>The change of a three-letter code element is not so critical from the point
>of view of the ISO 3166/MA because there are enough code elements available.
>The change of the two-letter code element (used in the application you quote
>in your e-mail) would probably have been out of the question, first because
>there are no other good combinations left starting with "R" and second
>because the two-letter code is being used much more extensively than the
>three letter code, hence the change would have created more work for users
>of the system than for the relatively modest number of users of the alpha-3
>code.

-- 
Michael Everson *** Everson Typography *** http://www.evertype.com