More hunches - come on, we need better than that.

[Michael Everson]

We do not encode duplicate characters, John, for good reasons, and I 
think that yi-Hebr and sr-Cyrl are tanatamount to duplicate codes. 
ISO 639 has all those duplicate language codes (T/B) and it is a 
mess. It seems to me that we ought not have duplicate codes. I have 
asked for the opinion of people like Ken who have more experience in 
software and database stuff than I do.

>This is all giving the IANA registration process a very bad image in 
>a very public arena.

I don't suppose so.

>So the short answer is
>(a) please posit some actual problems, in considerable technical detail, or
>(b) go with these registrations.

My response is that I (frankly) feel bullied by this process. I have 
objections to duplicates. I am being told that I *have* to approve 
these because I approved another one, and I've said I consider them a 
different case, and I've asked the proponents of these to talk to 
some people whose judgement I trust more than my own. And no, I'm not 
so sure about Mark's judgement in this matter. It seems to me he 
wants the quickest fix possible, and I am not sure that is what this 
RFC is for. Maybe it is. But I am not sure of it.

I think this is controversial, and I have insisted on knowing that 
all the players here are satisfied with the process. I have asked 
that you return to Peter Edberg's paper, which asked many questions, 
and decide a firm policy on this matter and the relationship it has 
with the RFC, the intent of tagging.

>Path (b) will make you a hero (and if there are any problems, it 
>won't be your fault, Michael, and it would be somebody else's job to 
>work out how to deal with any problems).

I don't want to open the door to problems.

>Path (a) - I wonder: won't that ust be a delaying problem?

What's the rush? Edberg's document was a draft, for discussion, and 
it's hardly been discussed, we are rushing along to adding a rake of 
things on the basis of the precedent *I* set with yi-Latn. That is 
not what I expected. See my note to John Cowan that I am sending out 
now too.

>In the worst case - doing neither (a) nor (b), but coming up with
>feelings, hunches etc will lead to an appeal on specific codes, and
>might even ultimately lead to your position as IANA Language Tag
>Reviewer getting called into question.

Damn such rhetoric, John, it seems to me that I'm SUPPOSED to put a 
hold on things if I am not happy about the process or the facts of 
the proposals.

>Please go with the flow, Michael, and go with path (b).
>
>In the terms above, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

You bully very sweetly.

I want Edberg and Whistler on board on this as well. I am cc:ing them 
particularly now because I guess no one else has gone to try to see 
if they have the same consensus view. John Cowan seems to be on the 
right track, if he can help us move from vagueness to concrete 
guidelines.
-- 
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com