A database of language relationships (Re: Script codes in RFC 3066)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand]

You echo a dream I once had.....

--On onsdag, april 09, 2003 16:07:53 +0100 Caoimhin O Donnaile 
<caoimhin at smo.uhi.ac.uk> wrote:

> I appreciate that.  My feeling, though, without being any kind of
> expert on the subject, is that the long term aim should be for
> a system of atomic (unstructured) codes together with an online
> database giving:
>
>   - hierarchic information for all extant codes
>
>   - obsoleted codes together with any information on equivalent
>     extant codes, and such hierarchic information as is still valid
>
> The database would be built into browsers and other software and
> an up-to-date version could be pulled in from the Internet in
> standard format as often as desired.

the big problems are:

- Who will define what goes into the database?
  (as in "finding the Answer That Is Right Enough")
- Who will do the work of maintaining the database?
  (as in "making sure it's available all the time, to everyone")

I despaired of finding a solution to these problems.