Subject: Protocol Action: 'Tags for Identifying Languages' to BCP

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:00:29 -0500

The IESG has approved the following documents:

- 'Initial Language Subtag Registry '
   <draft-ietf-ltru-initial-06.txt> as an Informational RFC
- 'Tags for Identifying Languages '
   <draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14.txt> as a BCP

These documents are products of the Language Tag Registry Update Working Group. 

The IESG contact persons are Scott Hollenbeck and Ted Hardie.

A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14.txt

Technical Summary

The registry document describes the structure, content, construction, and
semantics of language tags for use in cases where it is desirable to
indicate the language used in an information object.  It also
describes how to register values for use in language tags and the
creation of user defined extensions for private interchange.

The "initial" document defines the initial contents of the IANA
Language Subtag Registry for use in forming tags for the identification
of languages.  Since the contents of this memo only serve as a starting
point for the registry, it is inappropriate to use this memo in lieu of
the registry.

These documents were produced as part of the effort to develop a
successor to RFC 3066, and are the primary deliverables the working
group was chartered to produce.

Working Group Summary

Use of the existing IANA Language Tag registry revealed several
shortcomings, leading to the development of this document.
In addressing the requirements of its charter, the working group
found it necessary to significantly change the registry format.
Since language tags are used in a large number of protocols and
formats, the working group maintained compatibility with existing
language tag syntax, though it did change the syntax of registry
entries and updated the procedures for the maintenance of the
registry.  There was strong consensus on all of these.

Two issues are noteworthy for the amount of debate needed
before the working group was able to reach rough consensus on
them.  The first was the order of subtags, in particular of the script
identifier.  The second was the "Suppress-Script" registry field.
These two are closely related, and the tradeoffs involved a desire
to avoid re-tagging existing data and a need to keep the tag format
syntactically compatible with existing software, versus a desire
to provide a tag structure that was in some ways more consistent.
The working group opted for compatibility and avoiding re-tagging.

The "initial" document is a necessary companion to the primary work
item of the ltru working group, the specification of the IANA Language
Subtag Registry.

The IETF last call request produced many comments, some of which
revisited issues that had previously been discussed by the working
group and others which led to document changes.  A summary of the
comments and working group action to address them can be found in
the archives of the working group mailing list:

http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03807.html

Protocol Quality

This document received extensive review and discussion within the
ltru working group and the IETF as a whole.

Since language tags are used in a large number of protocols and
formats, the working group maintained compatibility with existing
language tag syntax.

At the time of this summary, likely additions to the registry had
already been discussed, but the WG agreed that since such
changes are part of the normal operation of the IANA Language
Subtag Registry, they should be handled on the mailing list
[email-masked] after the registry has been initialized.

The "initial" document is merely the delivery vehicle for the initial
content for the IANA Lanaguage Subtag Registry.  At the time of this
summary, likely additions ("language synonyms") had already been
discussed, but the WG agreed that since such changes are part of the
normal operation of the IANA Language Subtag Registry, they can be
handled on [email-masked] after the registry has been
initialized using the contents of this document.

The initial registry contents were checked against the data from the
underlying standards and for internal consistency by multiple working
group members using independent methods.
 
Scott Hollenbeck has reviewed these documents for the IESG.

Note to the RFC Editor:

draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14 in combination with draft-ietf-ltru-matching
(not yet approved by the IESG) are intended to obsolete RFC 3066
and BCP 47. These two documents should thus be published at the same
time as draft-ietf-ltru-matching once draft-ietf-ltru-matching has been
approved by the IESG.

Please add text to the Abstract and Introduction of
draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14 to make this clear.  "TBD" refers to the
RFC number assigned to draft-ietf-ltru-matching.

To be added to the end of the Abstract:

This document, in combination with RFC TBD, replaces RFC 3066,
which replaced RFC 1766.

Introduction, second to last paragraph:

OLD:
This document replaces [RFC3066], which replaced [RFC1766].

NEW:
This document, in combination with [RFCTBD], replaces [RFC3066],
which replaced [RFC1766].

Please add an Informative reference in draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14
to the RFC that draft-ietf-ltru-matching becomes.

Please replace zh-Hant-CN-variant1-a-extend1-x-wadegile-private1
by zh-Latn-CN-variant1-a-extend1-x-wadegile-private1 on
page 43 of draft-ietf-ltru-registry-14 in chapter 4.3.2 for
consistency with the immediately following zh-Latn truncation
example on the same page.  This typo was found after the IESG
evaluation and confirmed by the authors.

OLD:
zh-Hant-CN-variant1-a-extend1-x-wadegile-private1

NEW:
zh-Latn-CN-variant1-a-extend1-x-wadegile-private1

_______________________________________________
IETF-Announce mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce