This is not to say that all RFCs do just fine with ASCII
art. We have
non-standards documents, which we want the outside world to
read, that
look silly with the current formatting restrictions. We live with
projecting that visual clumsiness, as geeks often do.
I understand this. But it restricts RFC to the sole English
(ASCII) language.
Translating RFC as an authoritative text is therefore impossible.
jfc
Well there's a reason pilots and sailors and other people who's
business is truly international use english. We can't legitamately expect
technical issues to be drafted in every language (just like we can't expect
pilots to all know 5 languages) either. While I believe in the cultural and
intellectual value of different languages in exposing different viewpoints
and ways of thinking I don't believe there's anything technically oriented
that *can't* be expressed in english as well as any other language. It just
so happens that mostly english is the bridge that connects international
endevours, not that it's necessarily easiest (I believe they use french for
example in many UN docs because it's concise for example) it just happens to
be the one that people accept (much like for example internet standards!).
Nor do I have the personal motivation to translate a technical document to
hungarian or spanish though I could, because, fluent or not, that's still
REALLY hard and depending in any way on being technically colloquial in many
languages, and doing a good job at it.
That's not to say that anyone won't welcome translations of
important documents, but perhaps that's a much better job for the UN then
the IETF.
-Tom
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