Concrete subtags

[John Clews]

I quite like that idea of Addison's. In effect tag-construction by example.
The RFC would probably need some additional guidance however, when
written, so that users/implementors don't go completely "off the map."

If the new RFC (or some site mentioned in the RFC) pointed out
examples of which theoretically possible "bad tags" might cause
problems, and why, that might be helpful as additional guidance.

But something like that is for the future.

John

Addison wrote:

> In a new RFC one idea for registry reform might be to allow only
> concrete subtags to be registered. IOW, not "de-AT-1901". Instead you'd 
> register "1901" with the note that it is designed for use with (and thus 
> has practical meaning only with) "de" and its variations. If 3066bis 
> were more like, say, collation (with its strength levels) this would 
> make writing parsers and building exception tables much more robust.
> 
> It would also help quell debates, such as the one here, about precedent 
> setting. If 3066's registry were structured this way, registering "latn" 
> for use with "yi" (and later adding az, uz, and sr to it) would be 
> self-limiting. The debate would only have been about whether these three 
> languages should be added to the (already registered) tag. It would also 
> allow productive use of the sub-tags where they make sense (e.g. we 
> don't have to register a whole plethora of zh-hanx-XX tags because 
> registering 'hanx' does the trick).

Best regards

John Clews

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