Subject: Re: [Ltru] zh != Mandarin

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 19:15:14 -0600

"Phillips, Addison" <addison at amazon dot com> wrote:

> Mark's suggestion to allow both primary and extlang versions of the 
> encompassed languages at the same time is (IMO) ugly, but seems to 
> have support from others. My original suggestion was NOT to include 
> the subtags in both forms. I'm open to either course

I guess I missed that the emerging consensus was going to be to allow 
both "cdo" and "zh-cdo", and presumably to pre-deprecate one of them, as 
Mark wanted.  I didn't get that from reading Section 3.4 (11)(2), which 
seems to indicate it's one or the other.  Naturally I'm strongly opposed 
to this, but I suppose we'll see how it ends up.

I had thought the syntax had more or less stabilized, and the focus had 
shifted back to wordsmithing the meaning of "zh", but it seems we're not 
ready for a new draft-4645bis yet.

--
Doug Ewell  *  Arvada, Colorado, USA  *  RFC 4645  *  UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages  ˆ

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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 19:23:50 -0600

Leif Halvard Silli <lhs at malform dot no> wrote:

> When you first say that it "MAY", and then you say "might", then the 
> "might" sounds much more inviting than the "MAY" does. (It is almost 
> like a "feel free to".) Whereas "is not forbidden" sounds more like 
> "if there is a good reason for it", while at the same time stating 
> that there is nothing wrong with it.

Auxiliary verbs such as MAY, when used in RFCs, have a specific 
normative meaning according to RFC 2119, especially when they are 
capitalized to emphasize that the RFC 2119 meaning is intended instead 
of the normal, fuzzy English meaning.  It's best not to try to 
second-guess the meaning of a capitalized MAY in an Internet-Draft.

---

From: "Mark Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 18:34:52 -0700

That's the nature of a compromise; both sides think that a different
position is best, but both can live with the compromise. The "have both but
deprecate one" has the advantage of making the relationship between them
precise and unequivocal. Anyone with a preference for one vs the other can
convert on input with no loss of information.
I'm willing to live even with extlang being the non-deprecated one, and John
indicated that he could live with that. Are you saying that you are unable
to live with that?
Mark

-- 
Mark

---

From: Leif Halvard Silli <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:36:17 +0200

> second-guess the meaning of a capitalized MAY in an Internet-Draft.

I know about RFC 2119. I stand by what I said about "is not 
forbidden" as I see the outcome of such a phrasing more inline 
with the meaning which MAY is used to convey here .
-- 
leif halvard silli
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From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 21:21:53 -0600

Mark Davis wrote:

> position is best, but both can live with the compromise. The "have 
> both but deprecate one" has the advantage of making the relationship 
> between them precise and unequivocal. Anyone with a preference for one 
> vs the other can convert on input with no loss of information.

I think the degree to which the language tagging community -- which may 
be technically minded, but not necessarily standardization experts --  
will understand "deprecated" as something they are not discouraged from 
using, but which are simply normalized away by some process, is 
overestimated.  I think there will be a widespread belief that the 
deprecated forms must not be used.

> I'm willing to live even with extlang being the non-deprecated one, 
> and John indicated that he could live with that. Are you saying that 
> you are unable to live with that?

Sure, I can live with it.  I'm not planning to file an appeal or 
otherwise hold up WG progress, if that's what you mean.  RFC 4646bis 
will still be a better standard than 4646, despite this ugly wart, just 
as Unicode is still a great standard despite its deprecated-at-birth 
features.

If (nearly) everyone else can live with it, let's decide which one is to 
be pre-deprecated so I can build a draft.

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 21:34:25 -0600

Leif Halvard Silli <lhs at malform dot no> wrote:

> I know about RFC 2119. I stand by what I said about "is not forbidden" 
> as I see the outcome of such a phrasing more inline with the meaning 
> which MAY is used to convey here .

Sorry, I misread your original post and thought you were proposing a 
replacement for the MAY, instead of the "might" which follows.

I don't think this passage is particularly in need of rewording, but I 
wouldn't protest if Addison chose to use your replacement text.