New Last Call: 'Tags for Identifying Languages' to BCP

[Bruce Lilly]

>  Date: 2004-12-12 13:00
>  From: "Mark Davis" <mark.davis at jtcsv.com>
>  To: ietf-languages at alvestrand.no, ietf at ietf.org
>  CC: ietf at ietf.org

> Your claim that the RFC 3066 ABNF itself has a restriction in length is also
> clearly false. I will quote that again since you seem somehow not to have
> seen it:

I made no such claim; indeed it was I who pointed out
that RFC 3066 *theoretically* permits an infinite-
length tag.  On that basis alone (even if you missed
the fact that I am an implementor of RFC 3066
language tags) you can be sure that I am well aware
of the RFC 3066 ABNF.

> Both documents establish many further limitations on the contents of
> language tags in the text of each document. Ignoring those stated
> limitations will, in both documents, result in nonconformant language tags.

Are you claiming that

sr-CS-891-boont-gaulish-guoyu-boont-gaulish-guoyu-boont-gaulish-guoyu

is nonconformant per some specification in the draft
proposal?  It is certainly too long to be used in an
RFC 2047/2231 encoded-word.  It is much longer than
any registered RFC 3066 language tag, and the draft
proposes removing full tag registration procedure
restrictions as well as decoupling use from registration
that would combine to permit such an abomination.