draft-phillips-langtags-08, process, specifications, and extensions

[John Cowan]

JFC (Jefsey) Morfin scripsit:

> your draft is not controverted for bettering RFC 3066 but for not 
> bettering it enough, in an interapplication concerted way, for the 
> standard you want your draft to become. 

The intent is that the draft become a BCP replacing RFC 3066 (also a BCP),
not an Internet Standard.

> There are even *strong* political 
> (Governmental) oppositions. I document this below.

Which governments object, and where?

> And you refuse to discuss it.

That is a canard.  We have done our best to meet all objections fairly.

> We supported you. I still do provided your Draft only claim to be an 
> extension of RFC 3066, for the applications wishing to use it, since 
> several say it cannot be an RFC for Information. 

What do you mean by "extension of RFC 3066".  RFCs are not "extended";
they are updated or obsoleted.  The intention is to obsolete RFC 3066
(BCP 47) and create a new BCP 47.  BCPs are not Internet Standards.

> The document confusion and paucity are too important for the world, for the 
> IETF and for my 27 years long fight for the users, for me to accept it to 
> be an Internet standard.

There is no intention to make the draft an Internet Standard.

> 4. a group of private specialists proposes to get accepted by the IESG a 
> replacement of the RFC 3066.

The same "group of private specialists" that proposed, wrote, and got
IESG approval for RFC 3066, and has been administering it for the last
four years.  Indeed, the same group that proposed, wrote, and got 
approval for RFC 1766 and administered that from 1995 to 2001.

> It adds the consideration of the scripting 
> together with the language and the country.

Many tags with script information were registered under RFC 3066 and
are in use today.  The new draft simply allows ISO 15924 script tags
to be used freely in a disciplined fashion and compatibly with their
existing uses under RFC 3066.

> It adds more stringent registration rules for the language tags

No more or less stringent than under RFC 3066: discussion on
ietf-languages at iana.org, approval by the Language (Sub)Tag Reviewer,
and registration by IANA.

> and wants to be the Internet standard to designate languages.

The draft does not propose an Internet Standard.

> This means that the resulting of 
> directory of language will be the unique reference for the Internet.

No more and no less so than the current IANA registry at
http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-tags .

> 5. the Last Call debate has shown that the authors want only to consider 
> a unique language tag to be registered for the national written 
> expression of a language, without adding the possibility to document 
> their various usage and their documenting authorities.

That is simply false.

> This means there 
> will be a single Internet scripted language per country in Search 
> Engines, Web Pages, Domain Names, Web Services, on-line literature, 
> e-learning, e-commerce, e-government, protocols, technical translations, 
> etc.

This is patent nonsense, since the draft does not prohibit anything that
RFC 3066 allows.

> 6. I explained that we work (AFRAC, an experimental national reference 
> center) on the complimentary concepts of a Multilingualism ontology 
> considering scripting and vocal language instantiations, their 
> descriptors list, semantic, filtering algorithms and possible 
> authoritative cultural intergovernance. That we supported the effort 
> engaged by the author of the draft but found their text premature as a 
> projected standard.

The draft does not propose an Internet Standard.

> - there is at least two Internet scriptings : upper/lower case and case 
> indifferent. Are they supported?

This is incomprehensible.  Language tags under the draft are case-insensitive,
as they always have been under RFCs 3066 and 1766.

> - there is different character sets: scientific language includes Greek 
> characters, administrative do not. how do they address that?

The draft addresses languages, not character sets.

> - is it compatible with the IDNs tables which will already designate the 
> Web page access and be used in its links?

If RFC 3066 is compatible, then so is this draft, since every RFC 3066
language tag is permitted by this draft.

> - who is to register that unique definition of our national language?

The draft does not define languages, only a method of tagging them.

> - if this was true, this definition should result from a comprehensive 
> law describing the authorized variations?

The draft does not define languages.  Very few languages have a legal
definition of any sort: English does not, for example.

> - what are the technical alternatives to this sovereignty violation?

There is no violation of anyone's sovereignty here.

> - if this was a standard, its paucity will lead to patented application 
> additions. Language standard must be comprehensive and free.

The draft does not propose a standard of any sort.

> - scripts, cultures and dialects born and die everywhere everyday, they 
> also are oral. 20.000 dialects are known. Are they supported

Yes, in potentia.  Names of dialects can be registered as language
variants under the procedures given in the draft.

> - our work was fully supported and the idea of a rigid language 
> description tag not accepted by any correspondents so far.

RFC 3066 language tags are in wide use.

-- 
"Clear?  Huh!  Why a four-year-old child        John Cowan
could understand this report.  Run out          jcowan at reutershealth.com
and find me a four-year-old child.  I           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
can't make head or tail out of it."             http://www.reutershealth.com
        --Rufus T. Firefly on government reports