The problem is that Keld et al are threatening a filibuster against MIME
to force mnemonic into MIME without proper IESG sanction. It would be one
thing if he insisted that ISO-2022-JP should also be in there, but he doesn't.
I think if I said that omission of iso-2022-jp was a show-stopper to
me, I would also be called a "racist". It is really not easy to
address any Japanese concerns, if you are not Japanese...
My understanding of the removal of iso-2022-jp is that the Japanese
themselves said that the current specification was not good enough, and
that they were working on a better definition. So the spec written by
Sekigushi-san (sp?) was withdrawn.
Mnemonic is *NOT* of such general utility that IESG rules for citations
should be waived. Mnemonic is *NOT* of such general utility that all MIME
implementers worldwide should be required to implement it, regardless of the
target user base.
Oh well, the target user base for mnemonic is big.
Unfortunate, that is what Keld et al are demanding. They are demanding
that mnemonic be given a special status over and above anything else, by being
an intrinsic part of MIME. The stated purpose for this is to require that all
MIME implementations support mnemonic. Not `all MIME implementations support
multi-national character sets.'
Well, I am for support of other character sets than those in RFC-CHAR.
The problem is that there are no description of it, to my knowledge.
Which other character sets were you thinking of, Marc?
Still, EUnet is asking for support for our mail exchange standard.
I think it is up to others to ask for support for their standard,
eg the vietnamese or the japanese.
Should every MIME conforming application be able to support
japanese - I think: yes. Vietnamese: yes, and mnemonic: yes.
We are one big world and we should be able to interoperate via
mail. With "support" I mean the same kind of level that is required
for the ISO 8859-x.
What does this `support' mean? MIME has requirements for character sets
`at least to the extent of being able to inform the user about what character
set the message uses', and to `recognize ISO-8859-* character sets to the
extent of being able to display those characters that are common to ISO-8859-*
and US-ASCII.' Unrecognized subtypes are to be `show[n as] the "raw" version
of the data.'
Keld et al seem to find this unacceptable. They want more. I am at a
loss to interpret what they want as anything other than full support for all
European languages in all MIME implementations thorough the mnemonic
mechanism.
What we want is clearly stated in previous mail. I think you are now
just being unreasonable and using Fear Uncertainty Doubt tactics,
when you are knowing better.
Nowhere in this is a demand that East Asian or any other non-European
scripts be supported in all MIME implementations. In other words, these
Europeans are stating that European scripts are important enough that their
scripts must be included in all implementations, but non-European scripts are
not important. That is a racist attitude.
This is also extremely unfair to me. I have constantly advocated
a specification of the Japanese way of doing things, but they have not
yet done so, to an extent that they themselves are satisfied with it.
I have actually tried to help others - quite actively - Korean,
Vietnamese, taiwanese. But it is up to themselves to do the actual
writing of the specifications. I do not want to do it, mostly
so I would not get accused of being a "racist" - well seems like
I got caught somehow for something anyhow.
Keld