On 19 mrt 2010, at 12:02, Dave Cridland wrote:
Why care about a normative output? You change the subject to talk about using
non-normative representations already, why care about a normative output *at
all*?
You have a point. But it's in the subject line...
Let's concentrate on a normative format, and ideally making that format
editable directly.
Right, because that is the thing you need to do most often with the normative
form of the document. </sarcasm>
The most important feature of the normative version is that it is unambiguous.
That means that the software layers to view that version must be as few and as
simple as possible.
3. I cannot enter the name of an author correctly if that name
includes non-ASCII characters.
But even if you could, would you?
I don't think in itself it's a huge deal. I just think it's crushingly
embarrassing.
The IAB made a clear statement that we need i18n support, yet over a decade
after RFC 2130 or RFC 2825, the RFCs themselves still have a strict ASCII
limitation. Sure, that wasn't mentioned at the time, but does nobody else
find this plain shameful?
Not at all. Requring all users around the world to use latin script in their
URL bars and email addresses is a very bad thing. So all user serviceable parts
of internet standards must support scripts used around the world. But that's a
very different thing from what the IETF should do for its internal business. We
already restrict our communications to the English language. The further
restriction that publications only contain 7-bit ASCII can be argued on both
sides, but is hardly shameful. It's just a matter of efficient operation.
I'm named after Пётр Ильич Чайковский, but the Dutch government only accepts
names in latin characters. If countries can impose that restriction, the IETF
certainly can.
On 19 mrt 2010, at 18:06, Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
Pragmatically, one could simply state that one form (say, good-ol ASCII, to
avoid endless debates and for historical reasons) was authoritative and that
others were "best effort" versions of the same text and that any deviations
and omissions were accidental and should be brought to the attention of the
appropriate authorities.
Exactly. And then provide links to the PDF and HTML versions on an equal
footing with the text version so people can easily select the version that best
suits their needs of the moment.
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