Fixing the lost el-Latn

[Luc Pardon]

Doug Ewell wrote:
> I have to admit being a bit confused about Luc's concern here.  
 > The tag "el-Latn" is perfectly valid according the RFC 3066bis 
generative
 > syntax, whether or not it is listed as a "redundant" tag or not.*
> I agree with Luc that IANA made a mistake in not adding "el-Latn" to the 
> registry, but this mistake does not really affect RFC 3066bis
> implementations at all.  Redundant entries only exist for a 
> documentation purpose, to indicate what has happened to tags formerly 
> registered under the old 1766/3066 rules.  The only real benefit I can 
> see is for applications that support RFC 1766 and 3066 registered tags, 
> but do not support RFC 3066bis, and even then this is not a matter of 
> fixing the new subtag registry -- just one of retroactively fixing the 
> old tag registry.

      Agreed on the "only for documentation purpose". In fact, I don't 
really care if the "redundant" entry is added to the _new_ registry or 
not, as long as el-Latn is added to the _old_ one. I was merely 
responding to the (implied) statement that fixing the old registry would 
be undesirable because it would require a forbidden "redundant" addition 
to the new registry.

    Of course, if the old registry is fixed and the new is not, this 
would kind of invalidate the sections of RFC3066bis that deal with the 
initial contents of the registry (e.g. 2.2.8 and 3.3). Personally, I 
would think that this should be addressed as well. However, if "those in 
the driving seat" can live with that, so can I. As you say, it's just docu.

> 
> This is *not* the same as fixing the "fy" problem that occurred this 
> past week, because when IANA introduced a second "fy" record, 
 > that actually made the registry syntactically invalid.

     The "kind of invalidness" may differ (syntax vs. completeness), but 
otherwise it is the same, in the sense that in both cases human errors 
were made and were/could be corrected in a matter-of-factly and sensible 
way, without hiding behind sterile formalism.

> It could technically be argued that IANA violated Section 5.1 by fixing 
> their error, but my opinion is that leaving this clerical error in place 
> would have been much worse.  

    Absolute agreement here. But (again) it shows that it is possible to 
let the rules be the rules and apply common sense instead.

 > And I still do not see how this is related
> to "el-Latn," since (again) that tag is legal under 3066bis whether it 
> is listed as a redundant tag or not.

    It is related only if we want agreement between the old and new 
registries. If so, the "redundant" entry must be added, and that can be 
done in the same way as the duplicate "fy" was removed.


    Luc Pardon
    Belgium