ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: 10646 & MIME [was: Response]

1994-01-26 16:11:11
  If the precise forms of the characters are important to those who use the
  language, the unified ideographs may well be sufficiently different from 
  the character desired to violate the intent of the "unique mapping" 
  MIME charset requirement.  In short, I think Ohta-san has a valid 
  point which should not be dismissed out-of-hand or by claiming 
  that it doesn't exist.

I'm not dismissing the fact that differences exist between national
conventions regarding the way that certain ideographs are depicted.  

Yes, but what you would call "differences between the way certain ideographs
are depicted", someone else might call "completely different characters".  We
will never decide which opinion is "right", and we don't need to.  Attempting
to do so is a waste of time.


  It seems to me that the best thing we can do is to make 10646 as good as
  possible for MIME, without making it incompatible with other anticipated 
  uses of 10646.  Glenn Adams's suggestions as to how 10646 might be
  displayed seem to have the right intent -- though others may have better
  ideas.

Regarding "mak[ing] 10646 as good as possible", at this point, 10646 is
published and will not be changed until the first addendum comes along.

To clarify: when I said "make 10646 as good as possible for MIME", I meant
"make the document that defines use of 10646 in MIME as good as possible at
adapting 10646 both to the constraints of MIME, and to the needs of the
Internet community that uses it."  Sorry if I was being unclear.


Regards,

Keith Moore