A quick show of hands now

Harald Tveit Alvestrand harald at alvestrand.no
Tue May 27 10:32:26 CEST 2003


Doug,

--On mandag, mai 26, 2003 20:11:34 -0700 Doug Ewell <dewell at adelphia.net> 
wrote:

> John Clews <Scripts2 at sesame dot demon dot co dot uk> wrote:
>
>> Does anybody else wish to record their preference, for the record?
>
> As a non-committee member and relative newcomer, my preference would be
> to skip the ad-hoc step of registering these new codes and to start
> *right away* on a revision to RFC 3066 to support script code subtags on
> equal footing with country code subtags.
....
> Assigning codes for "sr-Latn", "sr-Cyrl" and such is a short-term
> solution.  In the time it takes for Michael to disapprove Mark's
> proposals formally, for Mark to start the appeals process, and for the
> IESG to make its ruling, we could be well on our way to a long-term
> solution that would make the short-term solution completely unnecessary.

your faith in the speed of the consensus process is heartening, but may be 
misplaced.

It was blindingly obvious from the day ISO 639-2 was suggested that RFC 
1766 would have to be updated, and the last formal obstacle was removed the 
day ISO 639-2 was finally approved.

But the time lapse from 1766 to 3066 was nearly 6 years, and the time lapse 
from ISO 639-2 approval to RFC 3066 was slightly more than two years, if I 
have my date stamps right.

Don't underestimate the time required to have a discussion on principles.

                           Harald



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