Subject: Re: [EAI] Consensus Result on Issue #4 - new reference and term for "ASCII", "non-ASCII", "UTF-8"?

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:08:08 -0500

--On Sunday, January 30, 2011 16:02 -0500 Joseph Yee
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> All,
> 
> (First, sorry for late delivery on this one, somehow the
> original 'seems lost', and thanks to JianKang to bring this to
> my attention)
> 
> Following responses, this issue has not reach any consensus,
> due to lack to participation (4 expressed opinions) and result
> evenly split.  Including opinions expressed prior consensus
> (during Dec, 2010 to Jan 2010) the result remains the same.
> 
> I will keep this question open until Feb 3 (Thursday) 9pm
> Pacific Time for more opinions to determine whether a more
> definitive consensus could be reached.  

Joseph,

Three observations:

(1) I believe that, despite the apparent imprecision, the
terminology we are now using is quite common in i18n work, both
inside and outside the IETF and that we risk at least as much
confusion by trying to adopt terminology that is unique to EAI
as we do by sticking with terminology now in the documents,
checking that terminology for accurate use as needed.

(2) I think we know from experience that trying to rearrange the
terminology in late-stage documents (I hope that these are
late-stage, at least wrt the underlying protocols) often
introduces errors and inconsistencies.  That is a fairly high
price to pay for what appears to me to be a small marginal
improvement in clarity (again, the terminology used in these
specs is, in general, the same as that used in the IETF and
elsewhere in i18n contexts).

(3) In our respective copious spare time, Paul Hoffman and I are
working on an update to RFC 3536.   That update will both fold
in some newer terminology and will update some of the old
definitions to be explicit about possible ambiguities and the
problems they may introduce.

> There is suggestion, from Barry, to contribute section of
> terminology to be used by EAI.  There are debates on whether
> it should be done at larger scale, a RFC with the terminology
> meant for all drafts rather than just EAI.  I welcome the
> discussion but please address the question of do we need new
> reference and term for "ASCII", "non-ASCII", "UTF-8" first.

See (3) above.  Note that such a draft should, IMO, not become
the responsibility of this WG although I would hope that EAI WG
participants would have a look at it and comment.

So I guess my answer to the consensus question is "no change
needed".

    john

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:03:57 -0800 (PST)

I generally agree and I'm not happy with any of the proposed alternatives, so I
guess my answer is "no change needed" as well.

				Ned

> _______________________________________________
> IMA mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ima

---

From: Joseph Yee <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2011 14:17:21 -0500

All,

Observed from further comments from John Klensin and participants who supported not to change, the consensus for issues #4 is no change to references.

Regards,
Joseph

On 2011-01-30, at 4:02 PM, Joseph Yee wrote:

> All,
> 
> (First, sorry for late delivery on this one, somehow the original 'seems lost', and thanks to JianKang to bring this to my attention)
> 
> Following responses, this issue has not reach any consensus, due to lack to participation (4 expressed opinions) and result evenly split.  Including opinions expressed prior consensus (during Dec, 2010 to Jan 2010) the result remains the same.
> 
> I will keep this question open until Feb 3 (Thursday) 9pm Pacific Time for more opinions to determine whether a more definitive consensus could be reached.  
> 
> There is suggestion, from Barry, to contribute section of terminology to be used by EAI.  There are debates on whether it should be done at larger scale, a RFC with the terminology meant for all drafts rather than just EAI.  I welcome the discussion but please address the question of do we need new reference and term for "ASCII", "non-ASCII", "UTF-8" first.
> 
> Please notify me of any errors, misunderstanding, or missed opinions.
> 
> Regards,
> Joseph
> 
>