Ohta-san,
Sometimes, I wear a hat as an area director for the standards
process itself and your note warrants a comment in that regard:
> We could probably argue forever over shades of meaning of "glyph"
> and "character" (and I gather that the ISO working groups on
> character sets do so),
The ISO result should have nothing to do with how IETF thinks a character
code should be.
The IETF is free to pursue topics and to develop specifications as it
sees fit. It most definitely is not tied to the work of any other group.
However, the general policy of IETF operations is to pay attention to work
done by other groups, particularly by other standards groups, and to use
as much of it as is reasonable. In other words, we can change or reject
other work, but only if we have a very, very good reason. We definitely
do not simply ignore such other work. We need to have an alternative
that we deem superior.
Please note that I am not commenting on the quality of this particular
ISO effort and do not wish to engage in that discussion. Rather, I am
commenting on your apparent assertion that we do not need to care
about ISO work.
I hope that this clarifies the question of IETF use of outside work by
other standards bodies.
Dave