[Ltru] status of RFC 3066 or RFC 3066bis in relation to HTTP Accept-Language

[McDonald, Ira]

Mark Crispin wrote:
> 
> As a long-time IETFer:
> 
> Typically, these matters are handled on an ad-hoc 
> case-by-case basis in 
> which common sense prevails.
> 
> The razor in this case is "does something break?"  
>
> 
> <...snip...>
>
> Equally important is that RFC ijkl should not have been approved for 
> publication if it creates an incompatibility problem in RFC 
> abcd, without 
> also updating/obsoleting RFC abcd.
> 

Precisely my point about RFC 2396 (Generic URI Syntax) and its 
successor RFC 3986.  Dozens of IETF and other standards specs 
were broken by RFC 3986 doing away with some ABNF productions 
and renaming others.  And Roy Fielding wasn't terribly polite 
about squashing my complaint.  And the IESG blithely approved 
this core spec with this glaring deficiency.

Peter - I think you're on your own - and note that RFC 1766
doesn't exactly gracefully prepare programmers for 'script'
subtags in the second position followed by 'region' subtags
in the third position - quoting from page 2 of RFC 1766:

   The syntax of this tag in RFC-822 EBNF is:

    Language-Tag = Primary-tag *( "-" Subtag )
    Primary-tag = 1*8ALPHA
    Subtag = 1*8ALPHA

<...snip...>

   In the first subtag:

    -    All 2-letter codes are interpreted as ISO 3166 alpha-2
         country codes denoting the area in which the language is
         used.

    -    Codes of 3 to 8 letters may be registered with the IANA by
         anyone who feels a need for it, according to the rules in
         chapter 5 of this document.


Cheers,
- Ira
 

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald at sharplabs.com

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