Status of zh-* proposals

[James Seng]

>

JFC,

Given you have more concerns over the politics of the encoding then the 
technical facts behind it, let me remind you that

(a) Chinese is one of the official national language in Singapore
(b) I am currently the SC2, WG2 representative for Singapore

Consider the political consequences in your note below to Michael to 
suggest I am not qualified to discuss Chinese language tags and that 
Singapore has no legitimate concerns over one of the our national 
language.

Don't bother to reply however - I dont expect one nor will I care for 
one. But do consider these facts before you make similar comments in 
future.

-James Seng

>> At 05:31 +0100 2005-03-06, JFC (Jefsey) Morfin wrote:
>>> Dear Michael,
>>> I did not want to say this on the public list, but I do not think it 
>>> is a good idea for this list and for the IANA to ask James Seng to 
>>> talk on behalf of China. Nor to register Microsoft as the Referent 
>>> of the Chinese languages in the IANA tables. I even feel both are 
>>> highly inapropriate.
>>
>> I am not interested in your extremist views. IANA asks nothing of 
>> James Seng. I suggest to Peter and Mark that they bring him in on it 
>> because he is an expert in IDN whose opinion we trust.
>
> Your qualification of "my views" helps better understanding why my 
> conditional support to the "RFC 3066bis" Draft was called 
> "gerrymandering" and that my condition to consider the IDNs needs was 
> qualified as "odious" by its authors.
>
> My suggestions (split of the Draft, creation of a dedicated IETF WG 
> for its Internet standard related parts, serious analysis of the 
> architectural implications of the multilingualization demanded by the 
> ITU and WSIS unanimous resolutions for years, involvement of the 
> national Registries, consideration of the programing aspects - 
> starting with IDNA) are what the authors, the IESG and yourself are 
> now following. A procedural consensus I can only applaud.
>
> I know you only consider the linguistic aspect of the IBM's and 
> Microsoft's Chinese language registration requests. But a IANA 
> registration is a technical issue which affects all the programs going 
> to use it, and by consequence all the users of that programs 
> (protocols, browsers, word processors, grammatical correctors, optical 
> readers, typesetters, spell checkers, computer-synthesized speech, 
> braille [RFC 3066], etc. etc.). Everyone understand the tremendous 
> impact they may have on national cultures, economies, sovereignties, 
> social cohesions. They should only be made by language authorities (I 
> am not the one who decided registrations should have a registrant and 
> a documentation of reference -  what is not the case in ISO 639, ISO 
> 3166, ISO 15924 which do not meet the resulting problems we face).
>
>>> I gave you the list of the ccTLD Managers for the countries IBM and 
>>> Microsoft want to be the Referent of the language. I can only repeat 
>>> my strong advise that you contact their ccTLD Managers first, as the 
>>> IESG registration adviser for the IANA language tag registry. By 
>>> courtesy and out of respect for their national sovereignty and for 
>>> the authority as the trustee of their local communities.
>>
>> I have no intention of fulfilling my role in any way other than it is 
>> specified in the RFC.
>
> I am sorry, but RFC 3066 refers to the ietf-languages at iana.org mailing 
> list. As the header of this mail shows it, there is not such a list, 
> but a reroute of the ietf-languages at alvestrand.no mailing list where 
> participants are to subscribe. This list is not advertised on the IANA 
> site, nor managed by the IANA. It therefore has not the exposure 
> required by RFC 3066, nor the resulting IANA authority. IMHO here is 
> the real root of our disagreement. Let respect RFC 3066.
>
> RFCs are coherent together. Please read RFC 1591 about the NIC being 
> the trustee of the Local Internet Community. Please read the RFC 3869 
> where IAB calls on the financial help of Governments for Internet R&D. 
> Also the ICANN ICP-1 document and the contract/MoU ICANN proposes to 
> ccTLDs. The Internet is the adherence to the Internet standards, our 
> contributions in getting everyone concerned involved should help this 
> adherence not to compromise its stability.
>
> jfc
>
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