Subject: [Ltru] Re: What is EU for in locales?

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:15:22 -0800

Addison Phillips <addison at yahoo dash inc dot com> wrote:

>> I'd like to know what EU is supposed to be for.
>
> I believe the answer there is: it's a code for a region, whose display 
> name and other info you can retrieve. There is no "xx-EU" locale in 
> CLDR (or anywhere else that I'm aware of).

But, but... this whole business got started a month ago when it was 
noted that CLDR used 'QU' for European Union, and Mark Davis expressed a 
desire to use 'EU' instead and also to use BCP 47 as the source for 
locale identifiers:

Martin Dürst:  "We clearly don't want to reopen every single discussion 
that we had leading to RFC 4646, but if necessary, we can reconsider 
some of thae decisions for RFC 4646bis. As an example, would it make 
sense for the LTRU WG to ask for permission from the ISO 3166-1/MA?"

Mark Davis:  "I'd be very much in favor of it -- CLDR only adds a very 
small number of codes to BCP 47 (it uses private use codes for 
compatibility). The QU code is a hack because we don't have EU, so it'd 
be very nice to get rid of that. (BTW, we don't really have to petition 
ISO to use it; if we want to use EU, there is nothing stopping us.)"

So while there may be no "xx-EU" locale in CLDR, there was clearly a 
motivation to get 'EU' into the Language Subtag Registry so that CLDR 
could use it instead of 'QU' for *something*.

> I think the main thing is not that EU is used in locale identifiers. 
> It is that BCP 47 provides a stabilized collection of regions, which 
> is useful in maintaining locale data.

I liked it better when the LSR was just for language tagging.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://home.roadrunner.com/~dewell
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

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---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:54:19 -0800

I think we all recognize and appreciate that IANA performs a valuable 
service for the language tagging community, and I'm sure none of us feel 
it would be appropriate to order them around like farm animals.

At the same time, we understand that BCP 47 demands certain duties of 
the Reviewer, the ietf-languages list, and IANA, such that if these 
duties are not performed, some or all of the maintenance process may 
break down.  For example, if the Reviewer does not issue a verdict on 
proposed subtags in a timely manner, or if IANA delays the release of a 
revised Registry or makes errors in doing so, some of the promises made 
by BCP 47 to producers and consumers of language tags are not kept.

Consequently, it seems reasonable to me to use RFC 2119 "MUST" in some 
of these requirements.  We are not saying that if IANA does not do this 
or that, we will chop off their hands, but we are stating the fact that 
it will adversely affect some part of the process.

I don't claim to be an RFC 2119 lawyer or historian by any stretch, so 
if there is some longstanding tradition that RFC 2119 "MUST" is 
appropriate only for computers and demeaning when applied to humans, 
then I apologize and stand corrected.

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:52:08 -0800

Hi -

> From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
> To: "LTRU Working Group" <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 8:54 PM
> Subject: [Ltru] MUSTard in the IANA section 
...
> it will adversely affect some part of the process.

This is indeed how the 2119 terms are generally understood.

> then I apologize and stand corrected.
...

The use of the RFC 2119 terms to distinguish mandatory and optional
portions of a procedure is well understood, and I'd be surprised if
an IETF-affiliated human found them demeaning.  After all, they are
used in this way in RFC 2418, among others.

Randy
as ltru co-chair

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:56:53 +0100

On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 08:54:19PM -0800,
 Doug Ewell <[email-masked]> wrote 

> appropriate only for computers and demeaning when applied to humans,

That would be a very strange tradition because MUST always apply to
humans - wether they are IANA employees or software programmers
implementing protocols.