Subject: Off Topic (was Re: [Ltru] Great Script Debate Part II: Formats...)

From: "L.Gillam" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 09:09:37 +0100

Jefsey's last few statements made me realise a possible solution for him.

He identified a desire to use a tag "jefsey-2005" or similar.

Of course, he can do this with private use extensions. This also seems to
be an applicable solution for his "nations".

So, if Jefsey tags his content with "en-x-jefsey-2005", the list can
configure its content-acceptance accordingly.

Whether such a tag would only be accepted if it has been given a name
in every possible language is another matter.  
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From: "L.Gillam" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 09:58:06 +0100

Jefsey,

> I must rush and may be out of reach for 2 days. There is no 
> real problem 
> with this. Again, as long as the format for XML is fine and 
> does not claim 
> to be the format for the world and that the five level of 
> multilingualism/vernacular are supported, if the QA and 
> openess warranted 
> by bilingual tables and the registration is opposed rather 
> than accepted, I 
> am OK.

XML can claim what it wants as far as I am concerned. It is a
consumer of tags, and may in some future be used as a tool for
structuring (a) registr(y|ies) of tags. In PUE, all things are
supported - I can't recall whether subtags still have to be
8*, but that's irrelevant anyway. 

Since ISO standards are the basis, where is QA opposed? Where
is openness opposed? These are fairly wild and unsubstantiated
claims.

> You just may want to consider that:
> - there may be some serious political reluctance to "x": it has been 
> objected with "xn--" as meaning "exclusion" or "xenophobe" or 
> "christian"
> - this is not a real problem for me, but be prepared to the 
> "-x-" to be 
> forgotten as soon as some one find a way to support it.

Funny, but when I search for xenophobe with xn--, what do I
find? A post by yourself pops up top (Google) in March 2003
(http://ops.ietf.org/lists/idn/idn.2003/msg00101.html).
Clearly it MUST be a real problem for you - you've been dwelling
on the issue for the past two years - but I've been unable
to find further "serious political reluctance" as you refer to
it. "x" to "xn--" to xenophobe, for a registry of language tags 
(a registry of language tags with a fear of foreigners would be
very small), is certainly both a leap and an interesting conspiracy 
theory.  alt.conspiracy should be your first target. Then perhaps
you could campaign W3C to rename XML, XSLT, XPath, XPointer, ....
perhaps the Unicode consortium and ASCII people also to prevent use of
the letter on computers, and change the entire dictionary of a
number of languages in the process.

Besides, if you've read the current draft, you'll realise that other
singletons are proposed also, syntax-wise. I'm sure it wouldn't 
require a major quantum theoretical shift to assign a different 
singleton to enable extension subtag use by those with serious 
political reluctance to the letter x in tags. Doug? Of course, you'd
need to find a letter which was politically acceptable in the process.

> - this will be all the more true that referent will register.

Register *what* exactly?
 
> Keep in mind 
> that the more referent register it means they are interested. 

No idea what this is meant to mean.

> Then they 
> will probably take over the register itself. In such a case, the RFC 
> formula I propose will be a warranty of stability (there is 
> only one RFC 
> while there may be many reference centers, with different 
> speed of access, 
> added value, etc.

Since this capability is already supported, as I've outlined before
on more than one occassion, what is the novelty of this unseen
proposition of yours? Bodies of all kinds CAN produce localised versions
(names) for tags - national standards bodies CAN register and support
them if they desire, DIN could provide a standard for German names and 
so on. You propose a solution to a problem of your own invention. I
wish you success.

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 11:53:06 -0700

JFC (Jefsey) Morfin <jefsey at jefsey dot com> wrote:

> - this is not a real problem for me, but be prepared to the "-x-" to
> be forgotten as soon as some one find a way to support it.

It's a letter of the alphabet.  Most people will cope.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California
 http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 23:26:09 -0700

> need to find a letter which was politically acceptable in the process.

Section 3.4 of draft-00, "Extensions and Extensions Namespace"
(renumbered as Section 3.6 in draft-01) is very clear on the process for
creating extensions.  I'm not sure whether the author of the extension
RFC would typically request a particular singleton, or whether IANA
would just assign one pseudo-randomly.  I'm guessing it would be the
former, but I can't see where it is stated.

In any case, an extension obviously couldn't be associated with the
letter X, since that is reserved for private-use subtags, so those who
feel particular fear and loathing over the letter X might prefer this
approach.  However, the stability requirements for extension RFCs might
make that mechanism unsuitable for inherently open-ended sets like
"referent," whereas the whole point of private-use subtags is that they
are semantically unregulated.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California