Subject: [Ltru] This time for sure: draft-ietf-ltru-initial-01

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 01:29:58 -0700

Randy wrote:

> Our plan is to do a traditional two-week WG last call on the registry
> draft and the initial registry simultaneously.

Well, then, I'd better get cracking.

A new version of draft-ietf-ltru-initial-01 is now available:

http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/draft-ietf-ltru-initial-01.txt
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/draft-ietf-ltru-initial-01.html
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/draft-ietf-ltru-initial-01.xml

I've substantially reworked the text in Section 2, "Initialization of
the Registry," so that it refers to what has been done, rather than what
MUST be done.  All RFC 2119 capitalized keywords should be gone now.
References to "the editor" have been expunged, and references to "this
document" should now refer only to the initial-registry document itself
(except as noted below).  Most or all of the changes Frank suggested on
Monday morning have been made, though some required more work than just
changing "MUST be" to "were."

Although I dislike acronym proliferation, I found it worthwhile to
introduce a new acronym in Section 2, "ILSR" for "Initial Language
Subtag Registry," to avoid confusion in some of the passages where it
was being contrasted with the living, evolving registry of the future,
or with the old RFC 3066 tag registry.  I tried to use this new term
(and others) with as much boring consistency as possible, to prevent
misinterpretation.

There are passages toward the end of Section 2 that I have placed in [
[ double square brackets. ] ]  This is text that I don't believe belongs
in the initial-registry draft at all; rather, it should either be tossed
back over the fence into draft-registry or be deleted altogether.  For
example:  "Users of tags that are grandfathered SHOULD consider
registering appropriate subtags in the IANA subtag registry (but are NOT
REQUIRED to)."  I think material like this is out of scope for
draft-initial.  I'd like readers to think about what to do with this
text.  One passage does include the phrase "this document" referring to
draft-registry; I didn't change it because draft-registry might be the
best place for that passage after all.

I replaced "code(s)" in most instances with "code element(s)," because
that is what ISO standards seem to call them.  If anyone finds this
really pedantic and hard to swallow, it can be undone.

I added numbers to the rules, but I cheated and insert the numbers
manually instead of letting xml2rfc generate them, because it's really
three lists and I couldn't find a mechanism to start the numbering for a
new list anywhere other than 1.

There is a new Section 4, "Omitted Code Elements," which contains the
much talked-about list of current UN M.49 code elements that aren't in
the registry.  This currently includes the items in the UN list titled
"Codes not in current use," including 200 for Czechoslovakia, as well as
830 through 833.  I've put [ [ brackets ] ] around most of these items
because I'm not sure they meet the criteria for being listed.  This was
a big part of Frank's most recent comment (which I confess I haven't
read thoroughly yet), and so I'd especially like readers to weigh in on
that.

As for the registry itself, it now contains a few (really mindless)
comments for grandfathered tags, because the text in Section 2 pretty
much requires it.  I personally don't see a need for a comment in a
record like this:

   Type: grandfathered
   Tag: art-lojban
   Description: Lojban
   Added: 2001-11-11
   Preferred-Value: jbo
   Deprecated: 2003-09-02
   Comment: duh, use jbo instead

because after all, that's what "Deprecated" and "Preferred-Value" are
for!  But I can see that in some cases, it might be useful.  For
example, we might be holding off on registering variant 'gaulish' for
use with 'cel' because ISO 639-3 will one day bring us 'xcg' and 'xtg',
or 'boont' because we think Boontling is too far from English to be
considered a "variant" of it.  In those cases, it might be useful to
have a comment.  Anyone in the WG should feel free to propose
appropriate Comment text.  I don't think it should be required for every
grandfathered entry to have a Comment field (Addison had downgraded it
to SHOULD) and I furthered softened the requirement: "The 'Comments'
field may optionally contain a reason for the deprecation."

And last but not least, this version of the registry does remove region
subtag 062 and replaces it with 034 and 143, so we can stop hearing me
whine about THAT.

As usual, all constructive comments are welcome, the more focused the
better.  Frank, I promise to read the rest of your comments and address
other concerns.  I think the group at large will have to work out
whether 830 through 833 should be registrable or not; it's a policy
question, not just a matter of how the document is worded.

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

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