On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 11:28 AM, <slevin(_at_)signpuddle(_dot_)net> wrote:
Hi -
There are several issues with Unicode.
Many of the world's standards organizations, including the IETF to
some degree, have more or less outsourced issues of character
definition and specification to Unicode. Were your writing system to
be accepted into Unicode, that would greatly increase the chances that
providers of rendering and display software would look seriously at
shipping implementations.
Of course, you would lose control of the standard (you would retain
the ability to provide input, but you'd lose control). This is a good
thing.
First, Unicode is written in stone. Our latest symbol set may be our
last, but maybe not. In 2 or 3 years, we may update our symbol set. This
would cause problems because Unicode is not allowed to change.
Unicode lets you add but neither delete nor change. This is a good
thing; such a constraint would be highly beneficial for your users.
Second, Unicode is used with sequential scripts: one character after
another. Our script is spatial: the words are characters written in space
based on coordinates. The words are sequential, but not the characters.
Even if we were part of the Unicode standard, I do not believe existing
applications could properly edit or display the words.
There are lots of scripts in Unicode which act in surprisingly
non-sequential ways given certain character combinations. The benefit
to finding a way around this problem are huge.
Right now, we believe the best way forward is to create open standards
with our own character encoding model. This CEM will server as an
excellent reference when/if we become part of the Unicode standard.
I agree with others here that the IETF is ill-suited to host this
work. If you're hell-bent on going through a standards process, you
might want to look at OASIS, which is has a relatively relaxed and
open process, and is less tightly focused than the IETF. -Tim
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf