From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 02 2003 - 10:38:21 CST
In <200302281510.h1SFARch000796@bean.epix.net> "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <mibsoft@epix.net> writes:
>I say there is no reason to wait, because
> there _is_ a way to do I18N on Usenet today,
> which will work with existing transport software,
>and is very likely to be compatible with any future Usefor draft.
No, becausde if a future draft wanted to do I18N names properly, using
UTF-8, it would not be compatile with an interim I18N of names using
punycode.
>1. Do not rely on transmitting anything other than 7-bit
> ASCII in headers. Since there has been no dispute of
> the parts of the Usefor draft which propose standardizing
> RFC2047/RFC2231/MIME, use them.
Dropping UTF-8 for 2047/2231 usages until such time as UTF-8 get
intrpoduced in mail as well is clearly a viable option. Though many on
this list still want to go the whole way.
>2. RFC2047/RFC2231 will not help with newsgroup names. But...
> (and this is a key point) there is nothing to prevent
> someone from issuing newgroup with a name with punycode
> components as long as the punycode output complies
> with the existing applicable Usenet standard. (And it will,
> if I understand it correctly.)
But as newgroup-names those would be incredibly ugly. If it were a choice
between doing that and not having I18N names at all, then I would prefer
not to have I18N names at all. But again, there are many on this group
who want the UTF-8 names now, before the Chinese do yet another "do it our
way".
Clearly, we are goung to need another straw poll before long, but we relly
need a Chairman before doing that, and the silence from the IESG is
deafening.
I doubt there will be any action until after San Francisco.
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5