Subject: [Ltru] Re: Proposed note on well-formed but not valid language tags

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:47:09 -0800

Debbie Garside <debbie at ictmarketing dot co dot uk> wrote:

> I really don't like language that refers the end user to standards 
> that they may be unfamiliar with and that have, as such, nothing to do 
> with language encoding.

I agree with this sentiment, and agree with Debbie's proposed rewording, 
except that it should use "MUST NOT" if it is meant to contain RFC 2119 
verbs and "must not" otherwise.

I would also hyphenate "as-yet", but that is just me.

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

_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:01:54 -0800

Stéphane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer at nic dot fr> wrote:

>> A validating processor will reject any such tag,
>
> It seems a very dangerous idea. Since what is valid for one processor 
> is invalid for another (because they do not use the same version of 
> the LSR, remember that a processor is not forced to fetch the LSR each 
> time it valids) the robustness principle should mean that even 
> validating processors should think twice before rejecting a tag.

In 4646, a validating processor (as opposed to a well-formed processor) 
is supposed to do exactly this kind of checking.  It is also supposed to 
do things like replacing deprecated subtags with their Preferred-Value 
(if any) and checking prefixes.  A validating processor is required to 
identify the date of the Registry used for its validity checking, which 
can then be checked to ensure it is the latest version.

Draft-4646bis has replaced the concept of validating and well-formed 
*processors* with definitions for valid and well-formed *tags*, but the 
principle is still the same.  A validating processor is one that checks 
a tag to see if it is valid.

> If the entire purpose of the processor is to validate, for instance, 
> before a publication, yes, I understand the rejection. But in general, 
> it is dangerous.

That's what validation is.  Not all processors have to be validating 
(going by the "old" 4646 definition); as you say, there are some 
circumstances where this is not desired.

BTW, while checking Section 2.2.9, I found the following nits:

> A tag is considered "valid" if it well-formed and it also satisfies 
> these conditions:

"... if it is well-formed..."

" o  The tag is either a grandfathered tag, or all of its language, 
extended language, script, region, and variant subtags appear in the 
IANA language subtag registry as of the particular registry date."

I think the reference to extended language subtags should be removed, 
since none can appear in the LSR by definition.