Subject: [Ltru] Re: Up-to-date copies of the LSR

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:19:58 -0700

John Cowan <cowan at ccil dot org> wrote:

> Randy Presuhn scripsit:
>
>>> Having an up-to-date copy of the Registry is something that should 
>>> be encouraged.
>>
>> As a technical contributor, I believe this would be a grave mistake, 
>> unless we *severely* qualify what is meant by "user."  I believe that 
>> vast majority of users have no need whatsoever for language tag 
>> validators.  Normal users should never even see language tags, much 
>> less be creating them.  Language tags used in protocol should be put 
>> there by software as a result of other user choices.  I think the 
>> only folks who should be using tag validators are the developers of 
>> applications which generate language tags.  These are hardly typical 
>> "users".

Put it this way:  The reason the Registry gets updated is to make 
tagging options available that were previously unavailable -- for 
example, "zza" or "GG".  It follows that those options are not available 
except in conjunction a with sufficiently recent version of the 
Registry.

> I don't think it's so simple.  I've been talking with Eric Muller of 
> udhrinunicode.org [note: URL corrected here], who's developing Unicode 
> plain-text versions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a 
> large variety of languages.  Currently he uses Ethnologue tags, and 
> he's asked me whether a RFC4646bis prototype evaluator is available so 
> he can look into converting to that standard when it becomes 
> available.  (Doug?)

Yes?  Oh.

Well, my tag generator and validator, called LTag (which should be 
announced shortly), works equally well with the existing 4646 Registry 
and with a 4646bis-aware prototype Registry that includes extlangs. 
Obviously it would be ill-advised to release that prototype -- in the 
DLL form that LTag uses, or any other form -- until we've at least had a 
first draft of 4645bis.  Watch the space.

> I think Doug means not that people should be encouraged to pull the 
> LSR dynamically, but rather that programs that encapsulate the state 
> of the LSR (like his Windows version) should be made widely available 
> and updated fairly regularly, monthly or every two months or whatever.

That's what I meant to say, yes.  It's certainly not the case that 
everyone who generates or receives language tags needs to be assured of 
having the latest Registry every time.  It's only important when trying 
to generate or interpret a tag that is not valid in one's own (possibly 
outdated) version.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California, USA
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
RFC 4645  •  UTN #14

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