Some readers of this list may be interested in recent
developments regarding ISO 10646:
--- Excerpt ---
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 92 11:29:01 PDT
From: Bill(_dot_)Tuthill(_at_)Eng(_dot_)Sun(_dot_)COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill)
Message-Id: <9206041829(_dot_)AA08302(_at_)cairo(_dot_)Eng(_dot_)Sun(_dot_)COM>
To: unicode(_at_)Sun(_dot_)COM
Subject: looks like 10646 will pass
Here are the unofficial results of voting. All ballots were
supposed to be postmarked by 30 May 1992; it's possible some
haven't come in yet. Nonetheless, it looks like 10646 will pass,
since it now enjoys an 80% majority. ...
Voted NO: 6 Denmark, Japan, Poland, Tunisia, Turkey, UK
Voted YES: 24 Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,
China, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Finland, France,
Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden,
Switzerland, Yugoslavia, USA, Vietnam
Of course, changes will be made to reconcile "YES with comments"
votes, and the committee will also attempt to improve things that
triggered NO votes. It's too early to predict exactly what these
changes might be. ...
--- End of excerpt ---
The implications of 10646 for electronic mail has also been
touched upon in the current extensive discussion on the
ISO10646(_at_)JHUVM(_dot_)BITNET mailing list.
SCHEIN(_at_)TOROLAB5(_dot_)VNET(_dot_)IBM(_dot_)COM = Isai Scheinberg, IBM
Canada
--- Excerpt 1 ---
Date: Wed, 27 May 1992 16:41:18 PDT
From: Steve_Strasen(_dot_)ES_AE(_at_)XEROX(_dot_)COM
Subject: SC18 N3592 Draft Liaison Statement on DIS 10646-1.2
The attached text is a draft of a liaison statement on DIS 10646-1.2 approved
by JTC 1 SC 18 at the Plenary May 5-8. While it is a draft, the actual liaison
statement will not differ from it in any substantial technical way.
...
Other Concerns:
1. Messaging: Economic implementation of electronic messaging systems
requires that message addresses be uniquely encoded. SC18 requests that SC2
determine whether DIS 10646 is intended to be applicable to electronic
messaging addressing. If SC2 determines that DIS 10646 is intended to support
electronic messaging addressing, SC18 requests that SC2 define and publish the
subrepertoire of character codes appropriate for use in uniquely encoded
addresses.
...
--- Excerpt 2 ---
Date: Sat, 30 May 1992 22:04:28 EDT
From: SCHEIN(_at_)TOROLAB5(_dot_)VNET(_dot_)IBM(_dot_)COM
Subject: Re: SC18 N3592 Draft Liaison Statement on DIS 10646-1.2
...
Of course 10646 is applicable to the electronic messaging addressing.
Defining a suitable repertoire for this purpose could be best done by
a group of interested experts, primarily from the electronic messaging
application itself with a help from SC2. By the way, I wonder why
does SC18 make this request? Doesn't electronic messaging belong to the
SC21 scope (i.e. X.400)?
...
--- Excerpt 3 ---
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1992 13:33:24 PDT
From: Steve_Strasen(_dot_)ES_AE(_at_)XEROX(_dot_)COM
Subject: Re: SC18 N3592 Draft Liaison Statement on DIS 10646-1.2
...
Re: electronic messaging addressing
While the comment specifically asked about electronic messaging addressing, I
believe that the primary thrust that 10646 does not ensure unique spelling, and
that some SC18 experts were concerned with the impact of this on a variety of
applications of which electronic messaging addressing was a reepresentative.
To the extent that the problem is more general than electronic messaging
addressing, SC2 might appropriately address it. (By the way, is it the intent
of SC2 that defining application specific subrepertoires be a common practice?
Doesn't this compromise the effectiveness of 10646 as a "Universal" character
code standard?)
...
--- Excerpt 4 ---
Message-Id: <ISO10646%92060410212605(_at_)JHUVM(_dot_)HCF(_dot_)JHU(_dot_)EDU>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1992 10:22:36 EDT
From: SCHEIN(_at_)TOROLAB5(_dot_)VNET(_dot_)IBM(_dot_)COM
Subject: Re: SC18 N3592 Draft Liaison Statement on DIS 10646-1.2
...
Re: electronic messaging addressing
While the comment specifically asked about electronic messaging addressing, I
believe that the primary thrust that 10646 does not ensure unique spelling, and
that some SC18 experts were concerned with the impact of this on a variety of
applications of which electronic messaging addressing was a representative.
The important thing for an electronic address is to be unambiguous. It
doesn't have to have "unique spelling". For example, the addresses in
Internet allow mixed case, which is very convenient, but makes them not
unique. The only thing servers and routers need to do is to monocase
during searches in their routing tables. Similarly, servers may keep UCS
names normalized some way, and perform a normalization operation during
address matching. Not too difficult.
...
--- Excerpt 5 ---
Message-Id: <" 4-Jun-92 10:47:59
PDT"(_dot_)*(_dot_)Steve_Strasen(_dot_)ES_AE(_at_)Xerox(_dot_)com>
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1992 10:47:59 PDT
From: Steve_Strasen(_dot_)ES_AE(_at_)XEROX(_dot_)COM
Subject: Re: SC18 N3592 Draft Liaison Statement on DIS 10646-1.2
...
Your comments on unambiguous addressing were well taken. Note, however, that
the cited example of case insensitivity entails specific a agreement to
restrict the alphabet (from 52 distinguished characters to 26) and agreed
algorithms for "normalization". In contrast your subsequent message on
normalization indicates that you do not believe that 10646 should specify how
such normalization should be done in the case of combining accents, etc.. This
would reduce users of 10646 in applications requiring normalization to define
these normalizations as application specific algorithms. I don't think that
this is a good idea.
...
--- End of excerpts ---
--
Olle Jarnefors Internet:
ojarnef(_at_)admin(_dot_)kth(_dot_)se
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