ISO 639-3 changes

[Doug Ewell]

On Thu Feb 9 02:41:46 CET 2012, I wrote:

> I need to wait a few days anyway for ISO 639-3/RA to fix a couple of
> errors in the data files.

After working through most of the Summary of Outcomes document and the
data files (*.tab), and discovering a significant number of errors and
inconsistencies, I propose that we wait until a revised set of data
files is available from ISO 639-3/RA before making changes to the
Language Subtag Registry.  This may take a few additional weeks,
according to the RA.

The risk in going forward now is that changes will be made to the
Registry that are not reflected in 639-3, and some incorrect changes may
be made that are not reversible.  For instance, we cannot delete a
language subtag that was created in error; we can only deprecate it.

Picking out the non-problematic code elements and applying them to the
Registry, while leaving the problematic ones until the fixes are in
place, would be tricky from a clerical standpoint.  I'd prefer to wait
for a clean and correct data set.

I will finish going through the current batch of data to try to unearth
any additional problems, so they can be corrected in the next release.

Apologies to anyone who has been waiting to use one of the new or
changed subtags.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA
http://www.ewellic.org | @DougEwell ­