LANGUAGE TAG REGISTRATION FORM (Newspeak)

Mark Crispin mrc at CAC.Washington.EDU
Mon Jun 2 11:48:16 CEST 2003


On Mon, 2 Jun 2003, Thor Kottelin wrote:
> Should the current registry, despite the practically unlimited namespace it
> has at its disposal, currently be nearing capacity, it should probably take
> steps to develop into a hierarchy, like centrally maintained hosts files
> were superseded by the DNS.

The DNS is a splendid example of what to avoid.  Yes, there is hierarchy,
but it's hardly used!

Just about every bad movie and TV show has its own name under .COM, not to
mention country codes (which I still consider to be a bad idea) being used
for vanity purposes.

The original intent of the DNS -- one second-level name per customer --
has long been lost and forgotten.

Language tags don't have that problem since they tend to force hierarchy;
but there still needs to be a recognition of its purpose.  That purpose is
not a comprehensive list of all possible names for all possible variants
of language.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.


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