status of ISO DIS 639-3

[Håvard Hjulstad]

> Peter Constable, Sent: 14. desember 2004 23:49
> 
> Yesterday, I wrote mentioning the DIS ballot for ISO 639-3. 
> Someone asked me offline whether the draft could be obtained 
> somewhere publicly. Unfortunately, ISO TC 37/SC 2 doesn't 
> have a public document repository. However, I did post a 
> draft online on SIL's site:
> 
> http://scripts.sil.org/PCUnicodeDocs#367db883 
> 
> (Look for the link to the document at the bottom of the page to
> ISO_DIS_639-3.5.) This copy contains the complete draft code 
> tables (one sorted by ID and one by name), but not the French 
> translation.
> 
> (I mentioned this link back in August; that was prior to the 
> TC 37/SC 2/WG 1 meeting, and some changes made to the draft 
> after the meeting.)
> 

Two things:

(1) Any DIS is a DRAFT. It needs to be pointed out that ISO or the relevant
committee cannot "guarantee" that a DIS will be published unchanged as an
International Standard. In the case of ISO 639-3 it is not impossible that a
few languages might be added during the finalization process; it is likely
that the names of some languages will be modified during this process; it is
quite UNlikely that any identifiers will be changed during the process. But
even the identifiers cannot be "guaranteed" until ISO 639-3 is published as
an International Standard. THEN we will stick to our extremely conservative
non-change policy (which, I should add, has become even more conservative
because of concerns expressed by the "Internet community").

(2) The code table of the FINAL 639-3 will be made freely available. And the
paper document will then be available through the normal channels (and I am
not the one who sets the price ...).

Håvard Hjulstad
(ISO/TC37/SC2/WG1 convener)

-------------------------
Håvard Hjulstad    mailto:havard at hjulstad.com
  http://www.hjulstad.com/havard/
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