Subject: [Ltru] Re: Archival of registration forms

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:54:25 -0700

Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer at nic dot fr> wrote:

>> At the specified address, you can find the language subtag registry 
>> but not the actual registration forms.
>
> This is specially annoying since, apparently, the "official" 
> registration form, the one which was sent to the IANA, does not seem 
> to be always publically available. For instance, the form for the 
> variant "baku1926" did not appear in ietf-languages (to find out what 
> it looked like, you have to read several messages and to integrate the 
> various patches proposed and accepted).

This would be easier if we could require the proposer to be responsible 
for updating his or her own form, and resubmitting it as necessary to 
reflect changes required by the Reviewer or recommended by the list. 
Some registration forms over the past year have required major 
clarification or other cleanup before they were well-defined enough to 
go into the Registry.

I've always thought we were doing the proposer a service by considering 
and registering their subtags based on incomplete or vague forms plus a 
lot of discussion.  Probably this was misguided.

Those of you who have experience with proposals for ISO, ANSI, BSI, WG2, 
Unicode, etc., either at the submitting or evaluating end, can probably 
share the pros and cons of the approaches taken by those bodies, and 
suggest a better way forward for us.

Addison Phillips <addison at yahoo dash inc dot com> wrote:

> I too find it questionable when the final registered format is not 
> sent to the list prior to forwarding (or at least as part of 
> forwarding) to IANA. In fact, I suspect that, given the stability 
> guarantees and rules in RFC 4646, such registrations can be appealed 
> if they differ from the requested record.

I agree that the final record that is sent to IANA should be cc'd to 
ietf-languages (not LTRU).  I would not tend to agree that it should be 
sent *before* final submission to IANA; that is what the review period 
is for.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Fullerton, California, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages

_______________________________________________
Ltru mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 02:10:14 -0400

> clarification or other cleanup before they were well-defined enough to 

This is true but addresses a different point.  It's too hard to find
the final registration form afterwards, which after all is the
fullest available definition of the variant.  It needs to go to
IANA as well as the record.

These are the equivalent of the forms that currently appear
for 1766/3066 in http://www.iana.org/assignments/lang-tags/ .

-- 
Principles.  You can't say A is         John Cowan <[email-masked]>
made of B or vice versa.  All mass      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
is interaction.  --Richard Feynman

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:18:31 -0700

Hi -

As a technical contributor...

> From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
> To: "LTRU Working Group" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 10:54 PM
> Subject: [Ltru] Re: Archival of registration forms
>

A longstanding problem which needs to be fixed.
RFC 4646 section 3.5 requires the approved registration forms
(as submitted to IANA by the language subtag reviewer, in my
reading) to be available.

...
> lot of discussion.  Probably this was misguided.

I don't think so.  IANA needs to retain and make available copies of
the registration forms submitted by the language subtag reviewer.

Do we need to add words to make that clearer?  Are the updated
registration form not currently making it to IANA, or is IANA not
making available the registration forms it receiveds?

...
> sent *before* final submission to IANA; that is what the review period 
...

IANA needs more than the final record.  IANA also needs to receive the
corresponding registration request for its records, to meet the
requirements of RFC 4646 section 3.5

Randy

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:33:29 +0200

On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 10:54:25PM -0700,
 Doug Ewell <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 52 lines which said:

> This would be easier if we could require the proposer to be
> responsible for updating his or her own form,

I do not see why. By definition, *someone* (probably the LSR) edits
the final form (the one sent to IANA). So, it is simply a matter of
copying it.

> clarification or other cleanup before they were well-defined enough
> to go into the Registry.

That's precisely why it is important to have the final form:
understanding "valencia" or "1926baku" currently requires reading many
messages in the ietf-languages archive. 12 months from now, it will be
quite difficult and problems already discussed on ietf-languages may
surface again.
 
> I've always thought we were doing the proposer a service by
> considering and registering their subtags based on incomplete or
> vague forms plus a lot of discussion.  Probably this was misguided.

Not at all. This is perfectly right. I never suggested that the
registration forms be accepted "as is" or flatly rejected. Patching
them is fine, as long as the final form (which, I repeat, already
exists, I do not suggest to increase the amount of work for the LSR)
is publically available.
 
> ietf-languages (not LTRU).

It is not what the RFC currently says (section 3.5 which I quoted at
the beginning of the thread). Your proposal has merits but, in that
case, please suggest a change in draft-ietf-ltru-4646bis-04 to the
LTRU working group. 

I would suggest that, in that case, a link to the archived message is
added in the Comments field of the registry.

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:55:53 +0200

On Mon, Apr 23, 2007 at 11:18:31PM -0700,
 Randy Presuhn <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 49 lines which said:

> A longstanding problem which needs to be fixed.  RFC 4646 section
> 3.5 requires the approved registration forms (as submitted to IANA
> by the language subtag reviewer, in my reading) to be available.

Yes. Whatever the reason of the lack of availability (remember that
David Conrad, IANA director, wrote he is searching why) IMHO, it
should be fixed. 

But for LTRU, it may also be time to consider a change to make this
obligation clearer in 4646bis?
 
> Are the updated registration form not currently making it to IANA,

That would be strange since they receive the registration requests and
they act on it.

> or is IANA not making available the registration forms it receiveds?

My guess is that the need to distribute the registration forms was
overlooked. Now that several variants have been registered, we notice
the problem.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:16:57 +0200

> for 1766/3066 in http://www.iana.org/assignments/lang-tags/ .

Yes, that's the place where the registration templates should
be collectedd + published.  At most one file per registered
subtag is enough.  And of course no file for subtags created
by a bulk update like 4645 or 4645bis.

Frank

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:04:36 +0100

> sent *before* final submission to IANA; that is what the review period

Actually, I interpret Section 3.5 to mean that submitting a changed 
registration request opens a review period. The fact that the original 
requester did not submit the specific email isn't that important. What's 
important is that *any* registration request has a review period on the 
list. The subtag reviewer then makes an explicit decision regarding the 
request. If you're changing the form, you are creating a change that 
might provoke potential objection.

Addison

-- 
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc.

Internationalization is an architecture.
It is not a feature.

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:07:12 -0700

Addison Phillips <addison at yahoo dash inc dot com> wrote:

>> ietf-languages (not LTRU).  I would not tend to agree that it should 
>> be sent *before* final submission to IANA; that is what the review 
>> period is for.
>
> requester did not submit the specific email isn't that important. 
> What's important is that *any* registration request has a review 
> period on the list. The subtag reviewer then makes an explicit 
> decision regarding the request. If you're changing the form, you are 
> creating a change that might provoke potential objection.

If the registration request has been changed, then I agree with you 
(while noting that we have not always done this).  If there has been no 
change, then I feel there should be no need to confirm the request after 
the review period elapses, but before sending material to IANA.

We should definitely take this up as part of the RFC 4646bis effort.

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 17:28:17 +0100

> the review period elapses, but before sending material to IANA.

+1

I agree that this is only necessary when a change takes place. 
Otherwise, there is no need to repost the item.

Addison

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:31:39 +0900

At 14:54 07/04/24, Doug Ewell wrote:
>>> At the specified address, you can find the language subtag registry but not the actual registration forms.
>>
>> This is specially annoying since, apparently, the "official" registration form, the one which was sent to the IANA, does not seem to be always publically available. For instance, the form for the variant "baku1926" did not appear in ietf-languages (to find out what it looked like, you have to read several messages and to integrate the various patches proposed and accepted).

Based on the experience with other registrations, I think it is good
if the reviewer can request the proposer to resubmit, but it is also
good if the reviewer can go ahead and move on without waiting for
resubmission.

Too reasons for the above:
1) IETF traditionally tries to use a lightweight and flexible process.
2) Requesters often forget to do a resubmission. The typical case is
   registrations where the requester has to submit the proposal to IANA
   two weeks after the review; most requesters simply forget that.

>This would be easier if we could require the proposer to be responsible for updating his or her own form, and resubmitting it as necessary to reflect changes required by the Reviewer or recommended by the list. Some registration forms over the past year have required major clarification or other cleanup before they were well-defined enough to go into the Registry.
>
>I've always thought we were doing the proposer a service by considering and registering their subtags based on incomplete or vague forms plus a lot of discussion.  Probably this was misguided.

If completing the form can be done easily, that's a very valuable
and not misguided service. But the right to request a resubmission
should be available.

>Those of you who have experience with proposals for ISO, ANSI, BSI, WG2, Unicode, etc., either at the submitting or evaluating end, can probably share the pros and cons of the approaches taken by those bodies, and suggest a better way forward for us.

Make sure we stay flexible.

>> I too find it questionable when the final registered format is not sent to the list prior to forwarding (or at least as part of forwarding) to IANA. In fact, I suspect that, given the stability guarantees and rules in RFC 4646, such registrations can be appealed if they differ from the requested record.
>
>I agree that the final record that is sent to IANA should be cc'd to ietf-languages (not LTRU).  I would not tend to agree that it should be sent *before* final submission to IANA; that is what the review period is for.

Agreed.

Regards,    Martin.

#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:[email-masked]

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:40:54 +0900

At 20:04 07/04/24, Addison Phillips wrote:

>Actually, I interpret Section 3.5 to mean that submitting a changed registration request opens a review period. The fact that the original requester did not submit the specific email isn't that important. What's important is that *any* registration request has a review period on the list. The subtag reviewer then makes an explicit decision regarding the request. If you're changing the form, you are creating a change that might provoke potential objection.

For significant changes, I agree. However, we have to be careful that we
don't create an endless loop or an opportunity for a denial of service attack
(resubmit -> minor comments -> resubmit -> minor comments -> ...).

Regards,    Martin.

---

From: Addison Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:43:43 +0100

No, the language subtag reviewer is empowered to decide whether to 
proceed with a given registration (or to reject the application). 
However, the record to be sent to IANA *must* appear on list at some 
point prior to submission so that comments (major or minor) can be made. 
Michael is empowered to ignore spurious or minor comments. There is no 
requirement to resubmit the record if it is unchanged.

However, if he picks up a minor comment and modifies the record, he 
really needs to provide an opportunity for the list the see the full, 
comprehensive record. This avoids Stephane's original complaint---that 
you have to read many emails of a period of time to figure out what the 
record actually will be.

Addison