Subject: I18n of I-Ds (was Simpler than...)

From: "Tim Bray" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:44:27 -0700

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 4:23 PM, John C Klensin <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I see some fairly significant problems with most of the "RFCs in
> UTF-8" or equivalent proposals I have seen, many of them having
> to do with environments in which UTF-8 is not as ubiquitous as
> one might like to believe.

I actually haven't seen any concrete proposals in the admittedly-brief
(5-year) time I've been reading this list.  Which actually supports
your second point, I believe:

>   But I don't any point in trying to
> discuss or critique such proposals until there is one... and
> "proposal" in the IETF continues to mean "write an I-D", not
> "sketch an idea on a mailing list" or "express outrage that
> something isn't possible/ permitted".

OK, then.  Maybe I'm weird, but I've developed quite a bit of
affection and respect for the IETF and this ASCII-only policy seems to
me a major problem in the context of the the Internet in 2008.   On
the occasions I've brought the idea of doing something about this in
up conversation, the conversational reaction has been along the lines
of "Ha-ha, Unicode is imperfect and i18n is a bikeshed, get lost."

So, WTF, I'll go draft something and float it.  So at least when I
complain about this (which I seem unable to avoid doing) there'll be a
specific proposal for the IETF to sneer at.

 -T
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