Subject: internationalization and the naming draft

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:18:02 -0400

Hi.  A few people have said that they do not believe a discussion of
internationalization belongs in my naming drfat.  I'm OK with that, so
unless instructed to do so by Jeff I will not propose text.

I do think the issue is very important and will continue to
participate in the discussion.

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From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:20:07 -0500

> participate in the discussion.

I agree, it's important, but orthogonal to your I-D.

Nico
--

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From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:38:08 -0400

> I agree, it's important, but orthogonal to your I-D.

Speaking as chair:

Unless I hear a strong argument for why the naming problem space
cannot be described without including a description of the
internationalization problem and support for that argument I am
going to allow the working group last call to complete without its
inclusion.

I will be doing so for two reasons:

(1) there appears to be rough consensus that the problems are
    linked in such a way that naming cannot be described without
    a solution to the internationalization of GSS-API.

(2) internationalization of GSS-API is currently not in the charter
    of this working group.   I am not opposed to requesting that
    the group be re-chartered in order to address the problem but
    I would really like to see this group make some substantial
    progress on some of our existing work items before we begin
    to grapple with the internationalization problem.

Jeffrey Altman

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From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:20:33 -0500

>     to grapple with the internationalization problem.

It doesn't have to be.  First, because as Ken points out, I18N/L10N
support in IETF protocols is expected.  But second, the crucial part of
this work falls into the GSS-APIv2u1 clarifications, which are in scope.

Nico
--

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From: Jeffrey Hutzelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:25:56 -0400

>     a solution to the internationalization of GSS-API.

I think the naming issues _can_ be described without solving i18n.
In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that they can probably even be
_solved_ without it, and vice versa.  The traffic I saw suggests we
agree the issues are mostly orthogonal.

However, I agree that we probably don't _want_ to solve one without the 
other, since that would result in rather funny semantics where some API 
elements are UTF-8 while others are 8859-1 in theory but dependent in 
practice on locale or some implementation-dependent equivalent.

>     the group be re-chartered in order to address the problem but

True, but this should be easy to fix.  OTOH...

>     to grapple with the internationalization problem.

So would I.  We could descend for years into the depths of the burning tar 
pits of hell (or whatever equivalent) attempting to solve i18n.

-- Jeff

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From: Jeffrey Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:29:18 -0400

> this work falls into the GSS-APIv2u1 clarifications, which are in scope.

The areas in which GSSAPIv2 are to be clarified are specified in the
charter.  I18N is not one of the items listed.

We need to add I18N to the charter.

Jeffrey Altman

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From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:40:42 -0500

> charter.  I18N is not one of the items listed.

The GSS-APIv2u1 is broken in this regard.  We're wasting bandwidth.

Besides, I clearly recall discussing this at Paris, where you had us go
through a clarification excercise.  Or is my memory failing me?

Nico
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From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:47:09 -0500

Not Paris, Vancouver.  From the proceedings:

>The working group during the meeting wrote text for this document.
>Sections include:
> - Character-set issues
> ...

Who's the keeper of that text?

Nico
--

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From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:48:41 -0500

D'oh, it's in the proceedings:

>Proposed Text from Nico Williams: Character Set issues.  
>RFC 2744 refers to Latin-1.  However, the character set issues 
>within mechanisms expose themselves via GSS.  Nico proposes 
>removing references to Latin-1 in the C Bindings and adding text 
>to the generic API specifying:
>
>  the character set used for gss_import_name(), gss_display_name(),
>  gss_display_status() and any other places where one is needed will be
>  determined by the application's/platform's locale