From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Sun Feb 16 2003 - 10:58:37 CST
J.B. Moreno wrote:
> That's not how *I* am reading Bruce Lilly -- it seems to me that he is
> saying that 7 bits is it (as far as the standard goes) until all of the old
> software is no longer used.
Not quite. As far as generation of messages is concerned, yes.
I have no problem with wording indicating future directions,
or in suggesting UA support for reading raw utf-8.
> So that even if all of the users decided to
> switch tomorrow, the standard should stay the same.
1. There's no indication that users would change
2. Regardless of what users do or would like to do, the
existing infrastructure needs to be considered
3. Forget the idea of a flag day for switching untagged
charsets; it won't happen (it might be possible to
have a flag day for turning on support for raw utf-8
*after* all use of untagged 8-bit content has stopped,
but that's a different matter).
> But the change has to start sometime, and it might as well be now as 10
> years from now -- because the most significant change between now and then
> will be how used they are to doing it the way are they are now.
There won't be a change unless there is some pressure for it,
and untagged content in a "blessed" 8-bit charset won't work
in the presence of use of 8-bit content in multiple untagged
charsets. Hand-waving accompanied by the statement "we're
going to assume all untagged 8-bit content is utf-8" won't
bring about any change from those using other untagged 8bit
charsets -- they won't even notice.