Subject: [Ltru] Re: Compatibility with existing use (LDAP)

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 00:08:30 -0700

Kurt D. Zeilenga <Kurt at OpenLDAP dot org> wrote:

> If you change the syntax and semantics of RFC 3066 tags,
> you will break everything that relies on them.

Fortunately, we're not doing that.

Ira McDonald had written:

> Also, LTRU is developing an IANA registry of EVERY
> possible valid language tag.

We're not doing that either.  Important distinction: we are developing a
registry of every possible valid *subtag*, not tag.  The former adds up
to just under a thousand items; the latter (including all the ridiculous
ones) would be about 15 million.

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

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 00:47:27 +0200

At 09:08 07/04/2005, Doug Ewell wrote:
>the latter (including all the ridiculous ones) would be about 15 million.

Serious ones would probably be billions.
jfc

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 22:17:56 -0700

> Serious ones would probably be billions.

479 language subtags.
104 script subtags, plus 1 for no script subtag.
285 region subtags, plus 1 for no region subtag.
10 variant subtags, plus 1 for no variant.  (This does not include
multiple variants; there are no two variants out of the current 10 that
could sensibly be used together.)

479 times (104 + 1) times (285 + 1) times (10 + 1) equals 143,843,700.

Off by a factor of 10 (for which I apologize), but this is still not
"billions," and I still contend that 99% of these are ridiculous.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California

.

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 22:53:33 -0700

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

> On 07:17 08/04/2005, Doug Ewell said:
>
> 1. we agree that we include all the "ridiculous" one, this means we
> discuss of the mathematical max. So we cannot disagree on computation.
>
> 2. we disagree on the figures. What is exactly the whole issue:
>      - you talk of ISO 639  479 languages, when I say 7.620 ISO 639-3
> or 20.000 ISO 639-6 plus all those registered on the IANA (the reason
> why we discuss an RFC) probably millions.

As a reminder to all, this traces back to a comment by Ira McDonald on
April 6 that "LTRU is developing an IANA registry of EVERY possible
valid language tag" [1].  As I said at the time, and Ira conceded this
was true, LTRU is actually developing a registry of each subtag, which
is numerically quite a different task.

Since we are talking about what LTRU is doing, not what LTRU will do in
the future or may never do, it follows that I was talking about ISO
639-1 and -2, not about 639-3 or 639-6 respectively.

>      - 104 scripts - which I consider as absurd when we know the real
> life scripting variations. IDN Tables may represent 3 to 40.000

A script is a writing system used to notate language.  There are 104 of
these in the registry, based on the codes in ISO 15924, which uses the
definition of "script" accepted by almost all authorities.  It is not
likely that there have been more than a few hundred widely used scripts
throughout all of history.

Each possible combination of letters used by a given language, country,
society, or human being does not constitute a different "script."  I
don't know what exactly it is that IDN tables represent up to 40,000 of,
but since we are talking about what LTRU is doing, I did not count them.

>      - 285 region subtags - where I consider _at_least_ ISO-3166-2

Since we are talking about what LTRU is doing, I did not include the
number of codes allocated in ISO 3166-2, UN/LOCODE, MARC 21, FIPS 55-3,
or any other geographic coding system not used in LTRU.

> 3. this being said, I would be quite interested in understanding what
> you list as the 10 variant subtags?

Why, the ones in the registry: 1901, 1996, boont, gaulish, guoyu, hakka,
nedis, rozaj, scouse, and xiang.

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California

[1]  http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg00595.html

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From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 14:41:02 +0200

>nedis, rozaj, scouse, and xiang.

Since the number of direct possibilities you give a maximum limit for is 
directly related (by multiplication) to their number, should I 
understand  you assume that this list extinguishes all the possibilities? 
Or that the mximum number (as when you consider ISO 639) is only related to 
the present status of approved documents. In this case I would agree that 
your figure accurately represents the current administrative maximum, while 
I am refering to a probable maximum of the real world. The administrative 
maximum starting from your figure when preloading the database to reach 
mine once the IANA's register has stabilized.
jfc