From: J.B. Moreno (planb@newsreaders.com)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 11:56:02 CST
On 2/14/03 12:07 PM, Bruce Lilly at <blilly@erols.com> wrote:
> The standard can simply state the requirement, viz. no unencoded 8-bit
> content.
The standard already says that -- and is roundly and routinely ignored, to
such an extent that the standard might as well be saying that the default
charset is egyptian hieroglyphics.
According to Andrew's Subject line stats (which does NOT include any other
headers, just the Subject) 15% of all usenet text articles already include
at least one unencoded 8 bit character.
> That is a necessary prerequisite from the current chaos to use of a single
> 8-bit untagged charset. Enforcement isn't necessary -- if there's a desire to
> move to utf-8, use of untagged 8-bit content will have to cease first so that
> when generation of untagged utf-8 is eventually permitted, one can be
> absolutely assured that such untagged 8-bit content *is* utf-8 and not any of
> a hundred other charsets. That's the carrot.
And it's not enough of one -- something you can use today, that will be
understood today, will (hopefully) be enough of one, pie in the sky and
we'll do it next decade, simply isn't going to convince anyone.
There *will* be untagged 8-bit content -- the only question is whether we
can convince people to use UTF8 or not. The idea that a current standard is
being ignored, so we must write a new standard that says the exact same
thing, is simply silly.
-- J.B. Moreno