RE: draft-phillips-langtags-08, process, specifications, "stability", and extensions

[Peter Constable]

> From: ietf-languages-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:ietf-languages-
> bounces at alvestrand.no] On Behalf Of Bruce Lilly

> > [...] RFC 1766/3066 need to be able to deal with tags that contain pieces they don't
> know about -- the only subtags they can know about are initial subtags of "i", "x" or
> ISO 639 IDs, or a second subtag consisting of an ISO 3166 code in case the first
> subtag is and ISO 639 ID.
> 
> Right. I.e. they should be able to deal with superfluous stuff
> on the right.  But not script tags that suddenly appear between
> language code and country code.

For purposes of an RFC 1766/3066 parser, a script tag plus anything after it would be "stuff on the right I don't know anything specific about". It could not be described as superfluous -- the process can still compare tags and make matches according to whatever rules it uses, such as left-prefix matching.



> For the triple of
> language/country/script to match usefully in the general case by
> RFC 3066 parsers (which are unaware of script in general), the first
> and second subtags would have to remain language code and country
> code respectively.

If you consider realistic scenarios, this makes the wrong assumption that country distinctions generally matter more to users.


> not on a Quixotic quest for "stability"
> of nations.

The draft doesn't try to achieve stability of nations. Only stability in the semantics of metadata elements.


Peter Constable