The ISO 3166 code CS

[Addison Phillips [wM]]

Yes, I agree, but the question is one of setting an arbitrary lower 
limit. Clearly 3166MA felt "forced" to reuse CS (even though there are 
probably other equally mnemonic values available). I would be happiest 
to see no reuse until utterly forced to.

And it isn't just "country-creation rate" that plays into the mix here. 
A lot of the changes in 3166 have been due to name or organizational 
changes that are politically important to the country in question but 
which don't have any practical effect on the meaning of the code (as the 
boundaries of the state remain intact).

To answer a separate question:

 >>1. What implications are there for the consistent use of YU, CS,
 >>    CZ and SK in relation to RFC 3066 and other codes which also use
 >>    ISO 3166 normatively?
 >
 >That is a very good question.
 >
The implication is that 'cz-CS' (an old code) and 'sr-CS' (a new code) 
apply to different countries. As a result, implementations that parse 
the language and country apart for reference purposes have to apply 
special rules to each of the values cited: the code means something else 
depending on the context in which you are viewing it. It means that when 
processing RFC3066 values you cannot just look up the subcodes in the 
relevent 3166 table to find a country match. This is at variance with 
idea behind generative tags.

Does "en-CS" mean "English for Serbia and Montenegro" or "English for 
Czechoslovakia"?

There is even a chance that Serbia and Montegnegro will split up and 
we'll have the possibility of CS being assigned to a THIRD owner (or at 
least leave it as doubly deprecated). Wouldn't that be lovely?

~Addison

Mark Davis wrote:
> I agree that we can't have permanent stability, but 20 years is rather
> arbitrary, and based on current country-creation rates, lower than it
> need be*. The best approach is simply not to reuse codes until forced
> to.
> 
> Mark
> 
> (Who knows, in 2050 we may all be members of the EU -- with Chinese as
> the official language).
> __________________________________
> http://www.macchiato.com
> ►  “Eppur si muove” ◄
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Addison Phillips [wM]" <aphillips at webmethods.com>
> To: "Mark Davis" <mark.davis at jtcsv.com>
> Cc: <ietf-languages at iana.org>; "Michael Everson"
> <everson at evertype.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 08:09
> Subject: Re: The ISO 3166 code CS
> 
> 
> 
>>While I share Mark's alarm and concern about the reassignment of CS
>>after only a very short interval, I can see why total stability may
> 
> not
> 
>>be easy to achieve.
>>
>>There are not quite 700 possible codes. While that is larger than
> 
> the
> 
>>total number of countries, countries change name/border/status often
>>enough and their meaningful names are not randomly distributed
> 
> enough to
> 
>>have long term stability. Permanent lockout of code reuse will
> 
> require
> 
>>something other than ISO3166 alpha-2.
>>
>>The interval on CS, though, was not nearly long enough. If
>>Czechoslovakia were some antique of a bygone age it would be
> 
> different.
> 
>>No one, I suspect, would object to a code for the "Austro-Hungarian
>>Empire" being reassigned some other use. Somewhere between five
> 
> years
> 
>>and ninety years lies a more reasonable boundary. I would
> 
> tentatively
> 
>>suggest 20 years.
>>
>>Best Regards,
>>
>>Addison
>>
>>-- 
>>Addison P. Phillips
>>Director, Globalization Architecture
>>webMethods, Inc.
>>
>>+1 408.962.5487  mailto:aphillips at webmethods.com
>>-------------------------------------------
>>Internationalization is an architecture. It is not a feature.
>>
>>Chair, W3C I18N WG Web Services Task Force
>>http://www.w3.org/International/ws
>>
>>
>>
>>Mark Davis wrote:
>>
>>>Yes. If they move quickly, they can avoid the damage.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>__________________________________
>>>http://www.macchiato.com
>>>►  “Eppur si muove” ◄
>>>
>>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>>From: "Michael Everson" <everson at evertype.com>
>>>To: <ietf-languages at iana.org>
>>>Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 01:46
>>>Subject: Re: The ISO 3166 code CS
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Marc, does this imply that the int'l community should insist that
>>>
>>>the
>>>
>>>
>>>>3166 MA *rescind* the reassignment of CS and assign something else
>>>
>>>to
>>>
>>>
>>>>Serbia and Montenegro?
>>>>-- 
>>>>Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  *
>>>
> http://www.evertype.com
> 
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Ietf-languages mailing list
>>>>Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
>>>>http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Ietf-languages mailing list
>>>Ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
>>>http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
> 



-- 
Addison P. Phillips
Director, Globalization Architecture
webMethods, Inc.

+1 408.962.5487  mailto:aphillips at webmethods.com
-------------------------------------------
Internationalization is an architecture. It is not a feature.

Chair, W3C I18N WG Web Services Task Force
http://www.w3.org/International/ws