Subject: RE: individual submission Last Call -- default yes/no.

From: Misha Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 13:37:53 +0000

Bruce Lilly wrote:

[lines re-wrapped and annotated with authors' initials]

> mw> My understanding of the purpose of the IETF/W3C Liaison group 
> mw> is, precisely, liaison over issues of importance to both the 
> mw> IETF and the W3C.

bl> Since the draft-philips-... effort isn't an IETF effort,
bl> exactly who would represent the IETF, on what basis, and
bl> for what purpose?

A first step could be to compare the two standards bodies' 
requirements for language tagging, to establish whether they are 
compatible.  Further steps could follow, depending on the outcome.
Note that while HTTP, for example, is an IETF standard, the Web 
relies on it.  Currently, the same language tagging standard is used 
by HTTP, HTML's "meta" element, HTML's "lang" attribute and XML's 
"xml:lang" attribute.  It would be very highly desirable to maintain 
this alignment.  I don't know who would represent the IETF, or on 
what basis.

> mw> I don't know 
> mw> what is the prevailing IETF position, but quite a few of the 
> mw> contributors to the langtags discussion have treated longevity 
> mw> of data and metadata as being of no importance (cf the debate 
> mw> over how to handle changes to ISO 3166 Codes for the Names of 
> mw> Countries).

bl> I believe that ("being of no importance") is a gross
bl> mischaracterization which does not represent what
bl> *anybody* involved in the discussion since the December
bl> New Last Call has said, much less the claimed "quite a few".

The contributions I refer to (which are in the mail archive) appear 
to take a profoundly negative position regarding a principal goal of 
the draft, namely the stability of metadata.

> > vs> Then there was the awesome list of authorities that the IETF 
> > vs> list members is ignoring at its peril.
> > vs> See http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg33563.html
> 
> mw> Ignoring at its peril?  I was simply demonstrating that  
> mw> standards bodies and individuals with long and respected track 
> mw> records have been involved for some years in the langtags work.

bl> You specifically stated that the draft-philips-... "work has
bl> been carried out as an informal IETF/W3C/Unicode collaboration",
bl> and proceeded to list 3 W3C participants, 1 Unicode Consortium
bl> participant, mentioned a W3C WG and a Unicode Consortium
bl> project, but *no* IETF participation and of course no IETF
bl> WG.  That remarkable comment -- "IETF [...] collaboration"
bl> with no IETF participation -- occurred after considerable
bl> discussion of the process.  It also occurred two days after
bl> the close of the New Last Call, so I have until this latest
bl> reference back to that peculiar statement declined to comment
bl> on it.

As has been stated before, the process followed with this draft 
appears to be precisely the same as that followed with RFC 3066 
(BCP 47).  Are you arguing that RFC 3066 too lacked "IETF 
participation"?  Or are you saying that some aspect of the process 
caused that effort to include "IETF participation" but was lacking 
in the case of the current draft?

bl> Something is gravely wrong when an ad-hoc group believes
bl> that it is in "collaboration" with the IETF by ignoring
bl> published (RFC 2418) IETF procedures and protocols and by
bl> failing to advise or consult with established IETF groups
bl> likely to have an interest in the IETF standard which the
bl> ad-hoc group proposes to replace.

See above.

bl> When a public gross mischaracterization of New Last Call
bl> discussion is piled on top of such claims of "collaboration",
bl> we've gone well beyond "gravely wrong".  I'm dumbfounded
bl> and can't find a term to adequately portray my shock and
bl> horror at such outrageous remarks.

I apologise for causing you such discomfort.

--
Misha Wolf
Standards Manager
Chief Architecture Office
Reuters

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---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:01:33 +0100

At 14:37 12/01/2005, Misha Wolf wrote:
>"xml:lang" attribute.

Sorry to come back on the particulars of the langtags debate. I do this 
only to illustrate the real source of the problem (described in RFC 2418 
part 2.3.

Misha documents very well the source of the problem: the HTML lang 
attribute is acceptable for the Web (IMHO not for Semantic Web) and the 
xml:lang attribute is not scalable. One first reason (lack of scripting) 
has been identified. But this is not the only one. Another problem is 
obviously the declaration "MUST" which cannot scale and creates a problem.

If I am correct the W3C documentation concerning xmls:lang is 
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/ paragraph 2.12 language 
definition. This document says: "A special 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/#dt-attr>attribute named 
xml:lang MAY be inserted in documents to specify the language used in the 
contents and attribute values of any element in an XML document. In valid 
documents, this attribute, like any other, MUST be 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/#dt-attdecl>declared if it is 
used. The values of the attribute are language identifiers as defined by 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204/#RFC1766>[IETF RFC 3066], Tags 
for the Identification of Languages, or its successor; in addition, the 
empty string MAY be specified."

This definition does not permit end to end interinteligibility (hence 
interoperability for web services, content filtering, etc.) except in 
closed customer groups sharing the same language dictionary, grammar, 
semantic, etc. for an ISO 639 language. If the intent is a universal unique 
multilanguage, by one single provider, this works. Otherwise it does not. 
This is why in addition to adding the scripting one needs at list a type of 
usage/function and an authoritative source information.

jfc

jfc