Essentially, Keld's work is a duplication of the information already
contained in other documents. My concern is whether this duplication
is in fact faithful. I have no doubts about Keld's intentions (they're
good), but work of this size is bound to have bugs in it.
Yes, I cannot guarantee that there are no bugs in it. There have
been bugs found - in the order of 10 bugs in the last 6 months,
plus some spelling errors.
If the work simply involved copying each character's name from the
official document to a table in Keld's document, there is some chance
that it would be correct, but it would still have to be checked of
course.
But if I am not mistaken the work involves more than simply copying
character names. For each character added to the tables, you need to
check if that character has already been added to some other table,
and give it the same name (i.e. the two-byte mnemonic).
That is true, some of the characters do not have the same names
as in 10646, some even does not have names (some vendor sets).
So I had to judge what it was. And that could be a source of errors.
I have had the main tables checked by programs up against other
collections of character sets (some errors were found in this process).
The tables have been available for about a year, also in character
set standards circles, so I think they are thoroughly tested.
A good way to have them even better tested is to have them published
as a RFC.
But now tell me -- is Keld's document the sort of document that the
822ext WG can put its stamp of approval on?
I'd say "No". Many of the people in this WG are relatively clueless as
far as character sets are concerned. (I am one of them.) This WG would
be slapping the true experts in the face if it approves the document
for publication as an informational RFC. It would be presumptuous to
say the least.
The tables have also been available to other communities than IETF,
including character set experts in ISO/IEC SC2/WG2, CEN IT/CSC,
EWOS TLG/CS and UNICODE. They have not approved them, but if they
found errors, they could easily report them. And some has done so.
The tables are originally written for ISO standardisation.
And they are also now being brought forward there, namely in SC22/WG20
and also CEN IT/CSC.
PPS If this WG "recommends" Keld's document, and the RFC editor
publishes it as an informational RFC, you can bet on it that Keld will
make that fact known to various other working groups, and use it as a
lever to get his work approved elsewhere.
Yes, I will tell people. Also those who paid me (Nordic Standards).
But it may not be a great help, as some standardisation bodies
are reluctant to standardise something which is already in use,
and thus gives somebody an advantage.
But I would regard publishing my I-D as an RFC as something I would be
very proud of, I think many RFC authors would have this feeling.
PPPS If "informational RFCs" are really not such a big deal, and the
RFC editor doesn't care about the accuracy of the information, and not
many other people care either, then I take it all back, and you can
ignore this message. (!)
that was what I was about to say, we only intend it for
informational RFC, and that has no great standing in the internet
standards hierachy.
Keld