Subject: Re: [Ietf-languages] Language subtag registration form

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 12:29:33 -0700

Mark Davis wrote:

> I'd like to emphasize that the list must be freely available (not
> behind the common ISO paywall), versioned, and stable (in the sense
> that new items can be added, and existing items can be deprecated, but
> nothing can be removed). That is, similar to what we see in
> https://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry/language-subtag-registry
> and in https://iso639-3.sil.org/code_tables/download_tables for ISO
> 639-3.

Yes, these attributes are critically important. We must never go back to
the days when official code lists used for language tagging violated
them. That's why I included the reference to Section 2.2.6, which makes
all of these points. It's essential that the 21636 contributors read and
understand it.

However, in order for there to be a freely available, versioned, stable
list, there must BE a list. That was one of my greatest concerns about
the work item as originally (and AFAIK still) specified: it was
conceived expressly to be adopted into BCP 47, but no thought was
apparently given to the administrative requirements of establishing and
maintaining a list of valid code elements that could serve as BCP 47
subtags. Without such a process, BCP 47 would be unusable.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, CO, US | ewellic.org

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From: Sebastian Drude <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 20:04:01 -0300

Dear Doug, Mark, all,

ISO 21636 just provides a framework, not yet any implementation, and 
hence also not any planning, as of yet, for a concrete registry for a 
list.  I agree that this list should be open and fulfil all the criteria 
of section 2.2.6.

I am here participating in this group exactly to touch base and see how 
we can implement this in a way that it is usable and compatible with BCP 
47, BEFORE a list is created which may not be compatible in some way to 
IETF/Languages' approach.
I believe that it is in the interest of ISO to be compatible with BCP 
47, but I also believe that it should be in the interest of 
IETF/Languages to recognize the new ISO framework for dealing with 
linguistic variation, and if it is seen as a valid contribution, to 
collaborate in implementing it to the benefit of everybody.

Best,

Sebastian

-- 

Museu P.E. Goeldi, CCH, Linguistica ▪ Av. Perimetral, 1901
Terra Firme, CEP: 66077-530 ▪ Belém do Pará – PA ▪ Brazil
[email-masked] ▪ +55 (91) 3217 6024 ▪ +55 (91) 983733319
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From: Mark Davis ☕️ <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 16:44:10 -0800

BCP 47 provides for a way to add extra capabilities using the extension
mechanism, so the way to go about the 'recognition' would be to draft an
extension RFC.

Since drafts of ISO 21636 are not available, it would be impossible to give
any advice as to how to fit ISO 21636 identifiers into a BCP47 extension.
However, as a bare minimum, any identifier would need to be a sequence of
ASCII alphanumeric subtags of length 2 to 8. If it required deeper
structure, such as key-value pairs, then the syntax would need to be more
complicated. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6067 is an example of that.

As to whether it would be implemented, that would depend entirely on the
incremental utility, and to some extent, on the 'degree of difficulty' of
the syntax. Again, without at least public drafts of ISO 21636, it is
impossible to assess.

Mark