Unicode & IETF

Patrik Fältström paf at frobbit.se
Mon Aug 11 21:44:04 CEST 2014


Shawn, with all due respect, Unicode and IETF are working on two different issues, have two different problem statement, and have two different goals. This discussion is not the result of lack of cooperation. It is the result of cooperation. The temperature of the discussion might be unfortunate and could be at a level to make the discussion more productive.

That the two standard organizations do reach different results when applying whatever algorithms they use when calculating what the best solution is to reach whatever goal is to be reached is for me completely understood.

This is also taken into account in IDNA2008 by having an exceptions section just because it should be able to handle individual cases, so having such exceptions is not the end of the world. The contrary.

Regarding when review is to happen, of course it should happen as early as possible. In this specific cases it did not happen earlier than when 7.0.0 was in beta, and the issue with the code point in question was relayed to Unicode Consortium by myself, although at that point in time the actual details of the situation what not understood.

Today I see the question has boiled down to what Andrew has explained, and from a pure process issue in IETF, given the existence of the discussion, the publication of the document should most certainly happen, with a clarification on the question(s) Andrew listed, REGARDLESS of whether the exception is added to IDNA2008 or not.

   Patrik

On 11 aug 2014, at 21:01, Shawn Steele <Shawn.Steele at microsoft.com> wrote:

> Several people have expressed concerns about the outcomes of Unicode’s discussions.  Some of those folks (I’m not sure about everyone) work for companies that are members of Unicode.  And those companies have representatives to the UTC.
>  
> A)     If you have concerns about Unicode, the encoding of new characters, etc., please talk to some of your organization’s representatives to Unicode.  &/or figure out how to participate, &/or
> B)      Delegate those responsibilities to those coworkers with Unicode expertise that are attending the UTC, &/or
> C)      If you think your organization’s UTC participants don’t have the expertise to handle IDN/networking/IETF type concerns, then please educate them so you know they’re representing your concerns in the UTC.
>  
> The wrong process is to skip A, B, & C, and then after the fact try to figure out how to ‘fix’ Unicode.  This also isn’t the first time this has happened. 
>  
> It’s not that we don’t have smart people in both groups, there are very smart people in both groups, but somehow there’s no confidence that the other group is ‘doing the right thing’, or perhaps no confidence that the other group ‘understands my requirements’.  Those should be solvable problems.
>  
> -Shawn
> 
>  
> http://blogs.msdn.com/shawnste
> http://L3-G0.blogspot.com
>  
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