Subject: [Ltru] Re: Is there a consensus ? (was: Comment: use VU for Vanuatu)

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 23:07:10 -0700

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

> I thank you for this loyal and clear response, where you show that a
> tag could mean something totally different from what it would mean if
> it was currently built according to the current ISO standard, and that
> you fully support to such a proposition. I did not considered the
> conflicts or confusion in IANA registration during the ISO standard
> evolution, but I suppose your response would be the same.

Hmm, I'd better not answer this directly.  Instead, I'll recast it in my
own words, and then respond to that.

The charter says, "For stability, it is expected that the document will
describe how the meaning of language tags remains stable, even if
underlying references should change, and how the structure is to remain
stable in the future."  I think it is reasonable to conclude from this
that at some point in the future, there may be subtags that do not have
the same meaning as the corresponding code element in the related ISO
standard.

It has been stated that ISO 639 and ISO 15924 have policies against
reassigning code elements, and we know that the proposed revision of ISO
3166-1 recommends that code elements not be reused for at least 50
years, not 5 as the current version allows.  Still, it is possible for
the RAs and MAs to change or break these policies, and the draft ensures
that even if this happens, the subtags derived from the reassigned code
elements will not change.

I fully support the proposition that I have described in the two
paragraphs above.

In my opinion, the potential conflicts and confusion of this approach
will be less than if subtags are allowed to change in meaning as a
result of changes in ISO standards.

> Since you are one of the most competent, active and acknowledged
> members of this Working Group, I am interested to know if - me apart -
> this is the consensus of this Working Group?

Determining consensus is the responsibility of the WG chairs, and so I
cannot comment on that.

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

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 15:48:21 +0200

>I fully support the proposition that I have described in the two 

I am not sure you described any position. You just quoted the Charter and 
started asking yourself some questions ?

you say "In my opinion, the potential conflicts and confusion of this 
approach will be less than if subtags are allowed to change in meaning as a
result of changes in ISO standards.". Why not to consider that 
people/users/real languages come before both subtags _and_ standards. And 
are more stable and real than their descriptions?

jfc